A CRUSADE OF ■ : ■ • :;;■.!' HOOti AUGUSTUS FIELD BEARD JUN241910 * t * v *? °^u S B tus Field, 183 Beard, * u ^ 1934 ' ** of brotherhood A crusade ot A CRUSADE OF BROTHERHOOD A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Secretary George Whipple, D.D. (* JUN24 1910 i A V f t ^ ^ CRUSADE OF BROTHERHOOD A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION BY AUGUSTUS FIELD BEARD AUTHOR OF " THE STORY OF JOHN FREDERIC OBERLIN " BOSTON THE PILGRIM PRESS NEW YORK • CHICAGO Copyright, iqoq By Augustus F. Beard THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE THE significant facts of the American Missionary Association history are scat- tered here and there in our American Missionary magazine through sixty volumes. I have quoted freely what has seemed to me to be useful for correct appreciation of passing events, and have endeavored to exclude all else. My purpose has been to entrench these facts in the reasons of the great movements for which they stand; to show something of the evolu- tionary processes by which they came to be, and to take on their distinctive characteristics. I have endeavored to keep close to the principles and policies which appear in our various records, and not to advance personal theories of my own. The concrete facts and figures which are repetitiously — and necessarily repetitiously — set forth in our magazine, The American Mis- sionary, from month to month through sixty years have seemed to me to be the less impor- tant part of the story. The passing years have brought many of the same experiences to view PREFACE as they are in all normal and healthful life. One year is much like another when things go well. The thought of the builders and the influences of their thought, their faith and patience, their consecration to their convictions, and how all this has worked itself out with struggle and trial, through misapprehensions and oppositions, ap- pears to be the main thing to be remembered. The resolute men who organized and carried on the Association, who did the things which have been done, are the real history. As I have sought to recognize this, it has brought me to relate incidentally rather than formally the principles of the Association, its theories and methods of administration, edu- cation and evangelization, that they may vindi- cate themselves in the visible results which have been accomplished, e. g., in educational institu- tions and churches established and carried on, in the spirit in which the work has been done, and in the esteem and approbation of leading South- ern educators like Curry, Haygood, Galloway, and others, who have given the testimonies of personal knowledge. Finally, I have sought to give a brief and comprehensive statement of present conditions and the outlook of to-day. In this I have placed the stress — where I think it belongs — vi PREFACE upon our great work and its challenging prob- lems during the four decades of our service among and for the negro people, without neg- lecting to present in their proper proportion and relation the other features of our endeavors. Before I began my researches I thought there would be more incident and story than I have been able to find. The early days were serious even to sadness, with work done under clouds, as in all initial reforms. The workers in the mission fields appear to have had little time or inclination except for the constant appeal and pressure in behalf of the work. They were too hard-pressed, too sensitive to the sorrows about them, and too earnest to see the humors of the situation. The later times, happier in a larger recognition, have yet been one constant struggle to keep up with the demands of the work on short allowances, and too strenuous and severe both in office and field for much romantic interest ; but the whole of it taken together is nevertheless a story of the " faith and patience which inherit the promises," and of God's gracious providences which it were not well to leave unrecorded. Augustus Field Beard. vu CONTENTS Page I. Conditions which Created the American Mis- sionary Association i II. Foreign Missions — In Africa 33 III. Foreign Missions — In Various Places ... 49 IV. Mission among the North American Indians . 63 V. The Home Department — West and South . 95 VI. "The Morning Cometh, and also the Night" 105 VII. Schools Following the Armies 119 VIII. Policy and Development 143 IX. Significant Years 165 X. Concentration 195 XI. Welcome and Unwelcome 217 XII. New Fields and Old 235 XIII. Experience and Justification 249 XIV. Survey and Outlook 271 XV. In Northern Alaska, Porto Rico, Hawaii . . 295 XVI. "The Just shall Live by Faith" 311 Index -, 2 * IX ILLUSTRATIONS Page Secretary George Whipple, D.D Frontispiece Rev. Josiah Brewer 40 Rev. Dan B. Bradley, M.D., Missionary to Siam ... 56 Normal Training School, Santee, Neb 72 T. L. Riggs, LL.D 74 A. L. Riggs, D.D 82 J. A. R. Rogers, D.D 102 General S. C. Armstrong at the age of thirty-three . . 126 Hon. William Jackson 128 Hon. Lawrence Brainard 132 Edward N. Kirk, D.D 134 Arthur Tappan 138 First Buildings, Fisk University, 1866, former Military Barracks 152 Erastus M. Cravath, D.D 154 General Clinton B. Fisk 156 Jubilee Hall, Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. . . . 158 Theological and Livingston Halls, Fisk University . . 160 General O. O. Howard 172 Foster Hall and De Forest Chapel, Talladega, Ala. . . 176 Foster Hall and Campus, Talladega, Ala 178 Chapel, Tougaloo University, Miss 1S6 Beard Hall, Tougaloo University, Miss 186 Straight University, New Orleans, La 194 xi ILLUSTRATIONS Page Allen Hall, Tillotson College, Austin, Texas . . . . 216 Dodge Hall, Pleasant Hill Academy, Tenn 240 Avery Normal Institute, Charleston, S. C 242 Secretary James Powell, D.D 248 Daniel Hand 258 Secretary M. E. Strieby, D.D 268 Girls' Dormitory, Piedmont College, Demorest, Ga. . . 274 Beard Hall, Joseph K. Brick School, Enfield, N. C. . . 278 Chapel, Joseph K. Brick School, Enfield, N. C. . . . 278 Lincoln Academy, King's Mountain, N. C 280 Joseph E. Roy, D.D 320 Xll CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Two germinant civilizations. — New England and Vir- ginia. — The introduction of slavery. — Its decrease in New England and increase in the South. — Its abolition in Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey. — The conscience of both sections against it. — Testimony of Thomas Jefferson. — The action of the general government to prohibit slavery in the Northwest Territory and its failure. — Sentiments of Washington, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, Madison. — The invention of the cotton-gin and great increase of profits by slave labor. — Consequent efforts for the perpetuation of slavery. — Local antislavery societies formed. — Lundy and Garri- son : their methods. — Alliance of New England com- merce and Southern slavery. — Agitation in the North. — Experience of Prudence Crandall and others. — New National Antislavery Society formed and determination to hold fast to the churches. — The widening movement against slavery. — Silence of the churches and religious societies. — The African captives in 1839. — Trial and freedom. — Return to Africa. — The Mendi Mission. — Organization of the Association in 1846 as a national society. — Subsequent absorption of the local antislavery societies. THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION THE " irrepressible conflict " which called The American Missionary Association into life and work was an evolution the beginnings of which are traceable in the first settlements of the country. In these, above all other immigrations, two distinct types were de- veloped which greatly determined, not only their own future history, but also that of the nation. These were of the North and the South. Each section with its own heredity made its own en- vironment, and as each developed after its kind the original stamp was distinct and clear. The United Colonies of New England accentuated the motives and institutions of a pure democracy. The Virginia colonists lived on their own estates and maintained the life of the cavaliers. A 3 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION rugged climate and a not too friendly soil called the New England settlers to severe personal labor in their conquest of the wilderness. The Vir- ginia colony under more congenial skies took on an aristocratic and easier form of social life. Each colony was strong enough to include in its distinctive characteristics other immigrations, but these two stand out in emphasis. These original differences were intensified by the introduction of slavery. The iniquity of human bondage was not realized in that day suf- ficiently to prevent its adoption North as well as South. That the Christian conscience of the New England colonies with their theories and modes of life should follow the example of the Virginia colony is not easy to explain. There was no demand for slaves in the Northern colo- nies, nor was slavery in harmony with their life and social conditions. That it had feeble hold and comparatively short existence in New Eng- land does not wash away the stain upon its his- tory. On the other hand, the social order of the South — its ideas of class privilege — the climate, and the agricultural industries, were such as to favor slavery, so that after one hundred and fifty years, the six hundred and seventy-five thousand slaves were chiefly in the South. This is not to assert that one section was more righteous in 4 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED principle in this respect at this time than the other. But the social conscience both in the North and in the South had begun to awaken to the iniquity of the system. Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, in 1733 bore earnest testimony against it, declaring that " slavery is against the gospel as well as against the fundamental law of England." As trustee he refused to make a law permitting " such a horrid crime." He found, however, the greed of the people more alive than their consciences, and the founder of Georgia, discouraged, gave up the battle and returned to England. As time passed, the convictions of the thought- ful increased. On the 30th of October, 1774, twelve colonies, which met for relief from British oppression, feeling the incongruity of their com- plaints as contrasted with their conduct towards the oppressed at their own doors, passed unani- mously the following declarations, solemnly binding themselves and their constituents : " We will neither import nor purchase any slave im- ported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it our- selves nor will we hire vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION concerned in it." Agreeably to this all the colo- nies closed their ports against the foreign slave- trade, and abolished it before the date of the Con- stitution. Antislavery societies were formed in the Southern colonies and thousands of slaves were emancipated in Virginia alone. With the war for independent nationality came a new discussion of human rights. It was im- possible to hold the logic of the Declaration of Independence and fail to see that the institution of slavery was a gross contradiction of it, and a violation of the very fundamental claims of the colonies for their freedom from oppression. John Adams declared his abhorrence of the practise of slaveholding, and said that " every measure of prudence ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States." A society in favor of its abolition had Benjamin Franklin for president and Benjamin Rush for secretary. Similar associations were founded about the same time in different parts of the United States. The Northern states in quick succession abolished slavery: Vermont in 1777, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in 1780, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire in 1784, New York in 1799, and New Jersey in 1804. Meanwhile the general government, by the ordinance of 1787, undertook to stop the 6 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED future extension of slavery, prohibiting it in its whole Northwest Territory. Perhaps the strongest protests came from the South, where the evils of slavery were more manifest. The wisest political foresight of the South predicted the inevitable consequences of the wrong. Thomas Jefferson, in 1774, wrote, " The abolition of slavery is the great object of desire in the colonies." He presided at the Fairfax County convention in 1774, and took part in fram- ing the resolves then adopted which expressed " most earnest wishes to see an entire stop put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade." He could not have used stronger words when he said : — What an incomprehensible machine is man who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power sup- ported him through his trial, and afflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebel- lion to oppose. . . . When the measure of their tears shall be full — when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberty among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminat- ing thunder, manifest his attention to the things of this AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION world, and show that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality. In 1784 he reported in Congress an ordinance that provided for the prohibition of slavery after the year 1800 in all the Western country above the parallel of thirty-one degrees, north latitude. The proposed interdiction applied to what after- wards became the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky as well as the North- west Territory. This was lost by a single vote. Jefferson, two years later, wrote : " The voice of a single individual would have prevented the abominable crime. Heaven will not always be silent : the friend to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail." Washington also voiced the feeling and the conscience of multitudes of Southern people when he repeatedly urged upon the legislature of his state the necessity of taking measures which would result in the gradual ex- tinction of slavery. Madison, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry all reprobated the system. There was no question with these leaders of opinion as to the wrong of slavery and the evils consequent upon it. Madison in the Constitutional Conven- tion earnestly opposed the section which delayed the prohibition of slave-trade until 1808. It was not merely that the profits of unrequited labor outweighed the consciences of those who 8 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED wished to see slavery abolished, and who saw the wickedness of buying and selling men and women as cattle. The trend of Southern civilization, the aristocratic social state which in itself made for class privilege, and the feudal theories of life added strength to the commercial selfishness sufficient to resist the promptings of the Chris- tian conscience and the prophetic appeals of statesmen. The invention of the cotton-gin in 1793, which fostered slave labor, found in the Southern theo- ries of civilization a good soil for the perpetua- tion of the system that Jefferson had charac- terized as " an abominable crime against human nature." History does not show many more striking expositions of the apostle's words to Timothy, " For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." What had prom- ised to be a general consent, that slavery was too evident a wrong to be tolerated, was followed — when it was found to enrich slaveholders — by a most servile acceptance of its continuance and even by determined efforts for its extension. Greed for the ungodly profits appealed not only to Southern planters; those engaged in North- ern commerce alike bandaged their ears and 9 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION closed their eyes to what but a little time previous had been a confessed wickedness against hu- manity, to be forsaken as soon as possible. The moral and humane expectations of the Fathers were thus outweighed in the scales by slavery, and slave-breeding became " no evil, no scourge, but a great religious and moral bless- ing." Meanwhile, Southern assertion and North- ern acquiescence had forced into the Constitu- tion a toleration of the slave-trade until the year 1808, and had increased the Southern vote by counting each slave as three-fifths of a voter. The slave was thus " three-fifths a man and two- fifths a chattel." This raised slavery to its throne, and gave it the practical control of the govern- ment. Thus entrenched it held the country firmly in hand. The first evidence of its political purpose and power — after thirty years when the attention of the country was upon other absorbing inter- ests — was in 1820, when the question came upon the admission of another slave state. Missouri and Maine were applying for statehood at the same time. The price for the admission of Maine was that of Missouri as a slave state. There were long debates in Congress, and slavery won, but with the proviso that it should never extend north of thirty-six thirty degrees. 10 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED Out of this debate from this time onward a determined spirit of opposition to slavery arose in the North. It was too deep-seated to accept the current apologies for the wrong on the ground that the responsibility was upon the South alone, and that the North had no right to disturb what the Constitution of the United States accepted and was pledged to protect. The pioneer of this opposition was Benjamin Lundy, of Quaker origin, born in New Jersey in 1789. He removed when nineteen years of age to Virginia, where his attention was first directed to the subject of slavery. In 181 5 he originated in Virginia an antislavery associa- tion, called the " Union Humane Society." He also formed antislavery societies in North Caro- lina which together numbered three thousand members. In 1828, visiting the Eastern states, he made the acquaintance of Arthur and Lewis Tappan and other prominent antislavery men. Meeting William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, he found a coadjutor sympathetic in purpose, but, as it proved, not in methods. Lundy, who wrote and spoke " the truth in love," and with such a spirit that he was tolerated in the slave states, secured Garrison's cooperation in publishing in Baltimore his paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. While Lundy traveled and lec- 11 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tured, the Genius in the hands of Garrison at once took on his own attitude and methods of bitter denunciation, for which he was soon ar- rested and imprisoned. Arthur Tappan, a mer- chant of New York, while he did not approve of Garrison's methods, believed in his sincerity and his devotion to the oppressed, and paid the fine which released him. The Genius of Lundy was ruined by the methods of Garrison, who re- turned to Boston with his heart aflame, and at once started The Liberator, his partner, Isaac Knapp, and he being editors, workmen, composi- tors, pressmen, and all hands. In his salutatory Garrison wrote, " On the subject I do not wish to speak with moderation ; " and he never did. He would have served his cause better if he had. Garrison's contribution to antislavery was in the truth he uttered in spite of the bitterness of his temper. Lundy was wiser. As the opposition to slavery grew, the South and its Northern partizans made desperate efforts to prevent the expression of opinion respecting it, while the churches in the slave states " searched the Scrip- tures " to prove that human bondage was divinely appointed and was morally right. The churches in the North were mostly silent. They certainly regarded slavery as a great wrong and mourned its existence, but they felt estopped by the con- 12 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED stitutional rights of independent states from doing more than wishing that it did not exist. To go beyond this was like meddling with the affairs of a foreign country. Not all in the North, however, went as far as this in their attitude toward slavery. The alli- ance of New England commerce with Southern slavery greed corrupted the conscience of North- ern society and succeeded in making the caste of color about as rigid and narrow in the North as Southern assertion could demand; this, too, in communities where it would be least expected, and which now regret that the unhappy facts of history cannot be expunged. There are liv- ing to-day those who remember an endeavor to establish a manual labor school in New Haven, Connecticut, for colored people, who were then excluded from other schools. The leading citi- zens of the city government rose together in their indignation and defeated it. There are those now living who can recall the time when the in- telligent state of Connecticut, after a full discus- sion, passed a law making it a crime to instruct any colored child from another state. It was in Canterbury, Connecticut, that Miss Prudence Crandall, who had a girl's boarding- school, received into it as a pupil a Christian young woman, a negro, who wished to be edu- 13 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION cated sufficiently to teach children of her race. It was decided by the citizens that such a pro- cedure could not be countenanced in Canterbury. Miss Crandall pondered this injustice in her heart. Here was one of God's children for whom she believed Christ had lived and died, and who was his disciple, forbidden by the community to seek instruction in the one place where she could get it. Upon this, Miss Crandall resolved to open a school exclusively for colored girls, and this she did in the spring of 1833. How cruelly she was persecuted, how shamefully traduced, and how bravely and patiently she bore her trials are all in the story. As there was no law, however, to prevent her, personal and political influence persuaded the legislature of the state to pass the act above referred to, making it a personal of- fense punishable by fine and imprisonment for any one in the state to instruct colored children from another state. Miss Crandall knew that she was right, and four or five different trials were had in the courts, for her persistence in recog- nizing the " higher law." The first resulted in her committal to jail. In the last trial before the supreme court of errors she won. The law was pronounced unconstitutional, and the result was that Windham County, when it thought it all over, became the most antisla very county in the, 14 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED state. New Haven also repented and brought forth fruit meet for repentance, as we shall ob- serve later on in these pages. In all this yielding to prejudice and unchris- tian caste, Connecticut was not a sinner greater than the other states. Wherever commerce touched the South, there the convictions of the North were silenced, and the entire North seems to have been inoculated with the virus of slavery. It was inevitable that this condition of things should result in the formation here and there of antislavery organizations. Naturally, those which were most radical and denunciatory re- ceived the first attention. With the wicked spirit of caste in the North, the growing assertiveness of the slave power, and its demands for North- ern silence and acquiescence, these organizations had sufficient fuel for their red-hot publications. There are always those who are susceptible to fiery appeals. Garrison, the chief of the denunciatory leaders, found a constituency, but his following was com- paratively small. Had his ideas and methods received universal adoption in the North, slavery would be in existence in the South to-day. Equally determined and greatly wiser were they who formed The American Antislavery Society, which held its first meeting in Philadelphia in i5 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION December, 1833. Perhaps its most prominent members were the brothers, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, of New York, merchants of high stand- ing and men of well-balanced and admirable char- acter. We shall have more to say of these in later pages. The sixty-four who organized this society were almost all members of churches. Twenty- one were Congregationalists or Presbyterians, nineteen were Quakers, and one was Unitarian. Such names as Joshua Leavitt, Elizur Wright, John G. Whittier, and Samuel J. May, were on that notable roll. The constitution was carefully drawn to safeguard the society against the im- putation of unconstitutional or anarchic tenden- cies. It declared that the right to legislate for the abolition of slavery existed only in the legis- lature of each state, that the society would appeal to Congress to prohibit the interstate slave-trade and to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- bia, and that the society would not countenance the insurrection of slaves. It was declared that their principles led them " to reject, and to en- treat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage." Their measures, they said, would be " such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption, the destruction of error by the potency of truth, and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of re- 16 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED pentance." The society opposed the formation of a distinct antislavery political party, deeming it wiser to diffuse their principles among the members of all parties. These men were not in accord with the methods of Garrison, though he was present and wrote a declaration of principles which was adopted. But he and these men were wide apart except in a common hostility to slav- ery. He denounced the Constitution; they did not. He held that all human governments were sinful and to be ignored as resting on force, or to be submitted to passively without taking part; they held to the exact opposite. He declared the Union should be dissolved because it was a com- pact with slaveholders; they believed that the Union must and should be preserved. To him the churches " were cages of unclean birds and synagogues of Satan," but these men were mem- bers of churches. It was a matter of course, therefore, that there should be a division of anti- slavery forces, and it came to pass that the term " Abolitionist," which in the South was applied to all who wished to see slavery abolished, had quite a different signification in the North. The name " Abolitionist " did not usually signify those who were opposed to slavery, but who held that op- position along with other political tenets and not as a supreme article of faith. These were best 17 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION included under the general term of " antislavery men." The vituperative methods of Garrison and those who hated iniquity after his fashion did not appeal to those who, equally disinterested, equally determined and earnest, were well bal- anced, broader and wiser. No less radical in their views as to the iniquity of human bondage, they realized the complexity of the problem, the absolute necessity of patience in reforms, and the faith that can wait upon the developments of time. That slavery was a system opposed to Christianity did not contain all the terms of the problem. The fact that so many of the churches were oblivious to the great evil did not lead these people to cut loose from the churches. They re- mained true to them even when they clearly saw that they failed to recognize all that duty de- manded. They believed they could do more toward correcting opinion within than by stand- ing without and screaming against those who did not agree with them; by working with such political alliances as could further in some de- gree their convictions rather than by refusing to have anything to do with any of them because they failed to compass the entire obligation. To swell the current of true public opinion by direct- ing what streams of influence they could, was 18 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED better than standing upon the bank and criticiz- ing the sluggishness of the movement and the crookedness of the channel. In 1835 this American Antislavery Society had two hundred and twenty-five auxiliary so- cieties. A year later these had increased in number to five hundred and twenty-seven, and in 1837 there were twelve hundred with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand members. At the seventh annual meeting of this Anti- slavery Society, May, 1840, the expected divi- sion of the body took place, and a new national society was formed named " The American and Foreign Antislavery Society." Arthur Tappan, after he had declined a reelection as head of the old society, was chosen president. A large executive committee of leaders was appointed who realized that the methods of Gar- rison and his followers were impossible. They repudiated a hostile attitude toward the churches and unsound positions respecting the Constitution and the government. This committee, consisting of the Tappan brothers, Mr. Birney, Mr. Stan- ton, William Jackson, John G. Whittier, Ger- rit Smith, Judge William Jay, Joshua Leavitt, W. H. Brisbane, Edward Beecher, and others, made no delay in placing their case before the country, giving the grounds of disagreement in 19 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION the antislavery ranks and a statement of prin- ciples. The antislavery sentiment almost every- where turned to the organizations in accord with this new society. Thus the aggressive and ever-widening move- ment against slavery went steadily on through defamations, mobs, and outrages that were a scandal for a civilized country. In part by means of these the evolution went on. The kingdom of God comes, not only in spite of the conflicts of human will, but often by means of them. His- tory is full of movements which themselves were big with injustice, and from which painfully evolved the very arguments to overcome them and deliver the people from their evils. " Great destinies," says Emerson, " grow out of their im- pediments and draw might out of them." The progress of mankind has thus been through storm and against head winds. The course has sel- dom been a straight one, as men planned, but a crooked one, as men made it, like a ship beat- ing its way against hard and furious weather. Providence assuredly was not tarrying. The various antislavery societies here and there were printing their pamphlets, distributing their tracts, and making friends as well as enemies. The Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs, while president of the American Board of Foreign Missions, thus 20 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED reviewed the conditions of the country at this time : The authority of the slave-power seemed established at Washington, dominant over Congress, supreme in the courts : and no limit was apparent to political sagac- ity beyond which that power might not be pressed. . . . The churches at the South were practically unani- mous in the contention that slavery was right in itself, that it had ample Biblical warrant, in patriarchal ex- ample, and particularly in the direction of St. Paul that servants should obey their masters, and in his sending back to Philemon the escaped Onesimus. Whatever occasional injustice to individuals might occur under local slave laws they held that the sys- tem, as such, had these superlative sanctions, and ought to be maintained, while the abuses, wherever practi- cable, should be relieved or removed. This sentiment, of course, practically and profoundly affected churches at the North. The great Methodist Episcopal Church divided on the issue, with almost geographical exact- ness, and two General Conferences thereafter occupied the area previously for sixty years covered by one. Other communions in this part of the country, while not so distinctly rent asunder, were painfully divided by the impact of Southern feeling upon them. The Old-School Presbyterian Church was widely permeated by this feeling. The Episcopal Church, with noble individual exceptions, was apathetic on the subject. The Congregationalists, less closely connected with the South than either of the others, were distributed by the question, according to their Christian or ethical sym- 21 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION pathies, in different directions. Distinguished presi- dents and professors in colleges and seminaries were sometimes open supporters of the system, or confess- edly tolerant of it, or, more frequently, they stood toward the whole momentous subject as dumb and cold as stone statues. Young men who should have known better seemed sometimes to take an eccentric pleasure in devising plausible arguments for the right of one man, under special circumstances, to own an- other. Prominent city pulpits were glad to present in persuasive forms what was distinctively styled " the South-side view " ; and ministers who resisted and an- tagonized such tendencies were apt to be regarded as presumptuous radicals. The influence affected great religious institutions. The American Tract Society, which issued profuse tracts against dancing, novel- reading, and similar iniquities, was utterly dumb before this colossal national wickedness, and even the really infernal laws which authorized the master to separate wives from their husbands, children from parents, and sell either or all in public markets, failed to stir its torpid types. The society must live long to outlast the memory of that disgraceful and damaging silence. The American Sunday School Union was in like man- ner practically fettered and stifled ; and repeated efforts to induce the American Board of Foreign Missions to take decisive antislavery ground, while carrying on its work among Cherokees and Choctaws and other slaveholding peoples, wholly failed of success, out of which failure came, however, The American Missionary Association, since so justly honored and so widely and nobly useful. 22 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED But the spirit which disputed and strove to arrest such tendencies at the North was not dead, nor even sleeping. For the most part, certainly, the Congrega- tional ministers of New England, especially through- out the rural districts, were intelligently and consist- ently hostile to slavery, and were ready to take their respective shares of service and sacrifice on behalf of their convictions. The same was widely true of other than the Old-School ministers in the Middle States, and yet more widely of those at the West ; while the general ethical sense of our Northern communities was being impressed and sharply stirred, not so much by what might be said in pulpit or on platform, as through what passed from one to another in neighborly con- versation and fireside talk. It was a matter of common observation that laymen were often in advance of those who should have been their moral leaders, on the ques- tion of slavery ; and that, while the special antislavery papers had limited circulation, there was a constantly rising ground-swell of resistance to the ideas under- lying the system, among all classes not personally or financially allied with it. In this evolution one of the providences which led directly to the organization of The American Missionary Association was an event which ex- cited the attention of the nation. In the spring of 1839 a number of Africans near the West coast were kidnapped by some of their own countrymen who acted as agents of Spanish slave-traders, placed on board a Portu- 23 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION guese slaver, which took them to Havana, where they were sold to two Cubans, the largest pur- chaser taking forty-nine of them for $450 each. A little schooner of about sixty tons was char- tered to take them to Guana j a, another Cuban port. They had been brought over in irons, but it was thought to be unnecessary to chain them down on this short coasting voyage. One of them asked the cook where they were being taken, and was told that they were going to be killed and eaten. This cruel jest was taken for literal fact, and since they were to be killed, it seemed to them that it could be no worse if they were killed in making a strike for their liberty. Their chief was a tall, stalwart African with a bold spirit. During the second night and under his lead they rose against their captors. The captain of the schooner was killed by this chief, as was the cook whose ill-timed pleasantry roused the captives. The cabin-boy, Antonio, a mulatto slave of the captain, and Ruiz, one of the slaves' purchasers, were secured and bound. The other purchaser, Montez, was severely wounded. The crew took to one of the vessel's boats and escaped. It was the design of the captives now to attempt the voyage back to Africa, of which they knew only that it was " three moons distant and eastward." By threats and signs they made Ruiz and Montez 24 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED take the wheel by turns and steer toward the east, but every night as soon as the sun had gone those at the helm would bring the schooner gradually about and head for the north. They were two months zigzagging in this way, when on Sunday, August 25, they cast anchor on what proved to be the northern coast of Long Island, not far from Montauk Point. A party of them on a tour of discovery came ashore, their only clothing being a handkerchief twisted around their loins ; those not having this protection wore blankets thrown over their shoulders. They went to the neighboring houses for food and water, and had Spanish gold, which they took from the schooner for the purchase. On Monday, while they were upon the beach, a number of the neighboring inhabitants drove up to find out who these strange, costumeless creatures might be. One of them, " Banna/' who knew a few English words, tried to communicate with them. His first inquiry indicated what kind of influ- ence these negro people had received from visi- tors who had gone to their native land from civilized countries. It was, " Have you any rum?" at the same time exhibiting Spanish doubloons. It is a shame to record that they received a bottle of gin in exchange for some of their money. The chief who was on board 25 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION of the schooner was now sent for, who immedi- ately asked through Banna if this country made slaves. The reply was, " No." " Are any Span- iards here? " " No." At this the chief whistled and the Africans sprang up shouting for joy. The white men, frightened, ran to their wagons for their guns, but the blacks showed them that there was no danger by presenting them with their own guns, of which they had two, and a knife. On the afternoon of this day a coast survey brig, the Washington, came into this part of the Sound, and, attracted by the strange appearance of the schooner, which seemed to be in distress, sent a boat's crew to her assistance. They found the negroes on deck armed with cane-knives. The boarding officer, at the point of a pistol, sent them below, and the two Spaniards who had purchased these Africans for slaves were re- leased. The chief, upon this, sprang into the water and made for the shore. He was pur- sued, retaken and handcuffed. The Africans now numbered forty-four, three of whom were young girls. Ten had died on the night of the capture. The Washington took her prize across the Sound into the harbor of New London. The Africans were committed to jail in New Haven, charged with the crimes of murder and piracy, 26 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED and the whole forty-four crowded into four apart- ments in New Haven County jail. " Here on the soil of a free state were a body of men in confine- ment on a charge of murder, because when kid- napped against law on a Spanish vessel, they had risked life for liberty." The slave power saw clearly what was involved in the issue and was excited. The government took the Southern view that the crime must be punished and res- toration be made to Spain, but these unfortunate people were not to go undefended. Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, subsequently a secre- tary of The American Missionary Association, Rev. Joshua Leavitt, and Lewis Tappan volun- teered to act as a committee in their behalf, to receive funds for their defense, and to provide them clothing and other necessities. They found a friend also in Professor Gibbs of the Yale Divinity School, who, having learned the sounds of some of their words, went to New York and about the shipping in the harbor until he found an African sailor-boy from Sierra Leone who recognized the words. He had some acquaint- ance with English, and accompanying Professor Gibbs to New Haven on September 9, the cap- tives were moved to tell their story and to com- municate freely. Professor Gibbs, with the in- terpreter's aid, set out to make a vocabulary of 27 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION their language, which was that of the Mendi country, north of Liberia, and was soon able to converse with most of them. It was in September when the case went to court before Judge Thompson, whose decision was that " while slavery is not tolerated in Con- necticut, it does not follow that the right of these Spanish claimants cannot be investigated here in the proper court of the United States." The discharge of the Africans was therefore refused, but as Judge Thompson had decided that they had committed no crime against our laws, they were now given much more freedom, and on pleasant days were taken out on the New Haven green for exercise. Within the jail also they had much more freedom. The appeal was now to the District Court. Judge Judson, who presided, had been best known as having brought the criminal proceed- ings against Prudence Crandall for setting up a boarding-school at Canterbury, his own town, for colored girls. His decision, after a trial which lasted a week, was that the prisoners were free-born and only kidnapped into slavery, were free by the law of Spain itself, and that they should be delivered to the President of the United States to be by him transported back to Africa. The claimants of the Africans had one more ?8 CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED chance. Appeal to the Supreme Court at Wash- ington could not be denied them. John Quincy Adams was added to the counsel in behalf of the negroes, and with Roger S. Baldwin the case went to the Supreme Court for decision. The hearing was reached in February, 1841, and in March the captives were declared " free to be dismissed from the custody of the court and go without delay." It had been a great battle. Adams had brought his learning and ability with supreme earnest- ness, Roger S. Baldwin had argued with resist- less power, but while the captives were free, " their freedom," as Baldwin said, " was a barren gift. . . . They were here separated from their homes by the distance of half the globe and in a state where they might be pitied but were not wanted." The united committee resolved not to relinquish their labors until the Africans had been safely restored to their native land. New appeals for subscriptions were made and the necessary funds were secured. In 1842 these people found themselves again in their own native country, accompanied by two Christian missionaries. The first suggestion was that they should be sent back in this way under the auspices of The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 29 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Missions, and the Amistad Committee offered what funds they had collected to the Board for this purpose, provided they would make it an antislavery mission. The Board declined the proposition, and the committee went forward on its own responsibility in establishing the " Mendi Mission," the first mission on the Dark Con- tinent, the funds for which were largely fur- nished by Arthur Tappan. This same year there was organized in Hart- ford, Connecticut, a society with the same aim as the Amistad Committee, viz., " to discounte- nance slavery, and especially by refusing to re- ceive the known fruits of unrequited labor." The Amistad Committee soon afterwards be- came merged in this, named The Union Mission- ary Society, and under its auspices the mission- aries directed the mission station at Kaw-Mendi, where a church was organized, a school estab- lished, and a decided influence exerted in that region against the slave-trade. In 1837 an independent mission had been undertaken among the emancipated people of Jamaica, which was intended to be self-support- ing. This, upon trial, was found to be imprac- ticable, and in 1844 a committee to provide for and direct this was organized under the name of a " Committee for West Indian Missions." 3° CONDITIONS WHICH CREATED Early in 1846 a call from Syracuse, New York, was issued for a convention of " friends of Bible Missions " to be held in Albany in September. Upon the call, the " friends of Bible Missions " assembled. In the call it was asserted that " The time has come when those who would sustain missions for the propagation of a pure and free Christianity should institute arrangements for gathering and sustaining churches in heathen lands, from which the sins of caste, polygamy, slaveholding, and the like shall be excluded. To bear such crimes in silence, not to say to direct practice or fellowship therein is enough to para- lyze the faith and hope of the church," etc. Two days were occupied in a free and har- monious discussion. At last, when it appeared that there was no other way to be free from the complications of slavery, those who could not sustain it and who could not keep silent, formed a constitution and elected officers. Hon. William Jackson, of Massachusetts, was elected President, George Whipple, of Ohio, Corresponding Secre- tary, and Lewis Tappan, Treasurer. Thus The American Missionary Association began its life. The executive committee were located in the city of New York. As the founders of this Association largely composed the local societies 31 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION above mentioned, these soon merged themselves into the new association which should be na- tional and unify their work. Arthur Tappan, who was the chief mover in the Amistad Com- mittee, and its head, became chairman of the ex- ecutive committee of The American Missionary Association. These societies having transferred their funds and missions, the Association vigorously entered upon its work of strengthening the missions al- ready begun, and establishing or accepting the care of others, — one missionary at the Sand- wich Islands, two in Siam, and a number among the colored refugees in Canada. " The Home Department " was conducted with a special view to the preaching of the gospel, " free from all complicity with slavery or caste." Two years later the " Western Evangelical Society," which had been formed in 1843 to prosecute missionary operations among the In- dian tribes of the West, likewise transferred its missions to The American Missionary Associa- ton and ceased to exist. 32 II FOREIGN MISSIONS IN AFRICA The outlook of the new society. — Appeal of the ex- ecutive committee. — The coming of Secretary Whipple. — The Mendi Mission in the foreground. — An industrial school at Kaw-Mendi. — Views of Rev. Josiah Brewer, one of the founders of the Association and member of the executive committee. — Theory of self-sustaining mis- sions. — Rapid death-rate of white missionaries in Africa. — Three central stations, with schools and churches. — Generous gift of Rev. Charles Avery of Pittsburg for African Missions. — The increased death-rate of mis- sionaries. — Decision to send colored graduates of our higher institutions. — Unsuccessful experience. — Trans- fer of the Mendi Mission in 1882 to " The Society of United Brethren." II FOREIGN MISSIONS IN AFRICA IN this way faith had its vision and its call. People who believed in God looked out upon another people, children of a common Father, who were born under the skies of a common country in a land of churches and Bibles, and saw them, not only with no legal rights, but not even with the rights of their own persons — chat- tels under the laws — bought and sold as things, in sin and degradation and without hope in the world. Their faith saw more; it looked into the future. It saw this people free and walking as erect men; it saw them listening to a gospel whose saving grace should bring with it clean hands and a pure heart. Its vision took in men and women going, in self-sacrificing love, to in- terpret the love of God and the brotherhood of man to those who had been in darkness and in the shadow of death. Their faith did not know how this was to be, nor when it was to be. They had their vision, and they had their call. They 35 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION could not be silenced because of the power which worked in them. It is God who causes the hearts of men to burn within them when they look with his look upon the sufferings which come through sin. When the ear of faith hears this call of God, then people find themselves confronted by problems which will no longer wait ; then come the tides in the affairs of men; then God's time and God's people find themselves face to face. So it was. To all ap- pearance, the way that The American Missionary Association had elected appeared most hopeless. Those who comprised it were few, and were not accounted wise. They were " fanatics " and " men of one idea." The sentiment of most of the churches and the strength and wealth of the nation were against them. The slave power was increasing. The annexation of Texas had opened a great field for it. This not only meant new votes in the Senate and in the House of Repre- sentatives, but several new states out of its im- mense territory. The question of slavery exten- sion had become more than ever insistent. The proslavery administration of James K. Polk was dominant, and political life was everywhere fever- ishly sensitive. This little society, with faith as its chief asset, set its face against this. In the first issue of its 36 FOREIGN MISSIONS "Magazine" in October, 1846, the executive committee refers to the address of the conven- tion which organized the Association for a state- ment of its principles, and asks " the prayers of the friends of Bible Missions everywhere that they may always speak the truth in love." It closes its appeal for Christian sympathy and co- operation as follows : — The field is unrestricted. Beginning with our own highly favored and guilty country, the Association will, as it may be able, preach the gospel to the poor, assist feeble churches, sustain missionary operations amongst the free colored population, and preach de- liverance to the crushed and stricken slave. It will endeavor to strengthen and extend the interesting mis- sion to the Indians. The fugitive slaves in Canada present an important field of missionary effort. The West India Mission among the emancipated slaves of Jamaica has great and pressing wants. The Mendi Mission should be enlarged immediately, and many reasons induce the committee to turn their earliest attention to India and China. In the issue of December, 1846, we read: " The Executive Committee have the pleasure to an- nounce that the Rev. George Whipple, of Ohio, has been appointed Corresponding Secretary of The American Missionary Association, that he has accepted the appointment, and is now in the city entering upon the duties of the office. They 37 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION bespeak for him the prayers of the members and friends of the Association and the friends of missions." At once the Mendi Mission in Africa appears in the foreground of the Association's first work. Two missionaries had accompanied the return- ing captives to their African home when the As- sociation took charge. One had already died. Rev. R. Raymond and wife were now at Kaw- Mendi with an assistant native teacher who could speak English. A school had been immediately established — a manual labor school. This pio- neer missionary, in 1846, writes: "The school is continually increasing. It now numbers thirty- nine, six of whom are girls. Twelve of these are apprentices — ten to the carpenter's trade, one to the sawyer's and one to the blacksmith's. Part are in school all the time. Those who are in school in the morning are with the carpenters in the afternoon and vice versa. Each division of the school takes its turn in cooking. The girls assist in the cooking and in taking care of the house and are learning to sew. You can easily see that the object of all this is to teach them industry. My plan is to make this in the end a self-supporting mission." This was twenty-one years before the school at Talladega in Alabama was founded, where the 38 FOREIGN MISSIONS industrial idea in the schools of the South had its first introduction. The missionary in Sierra Leone certainly had the gift of prophecy, but we shall be surprised as we follow the develop- ment of this African mission if we find that it ever became " self-supporting " ! In 1847 the Rev. Josiah Brewer, one of those who organized The American Missionary Asso- ciation at Albany, and who was upon its first executive board, a missionary who had returned from Turkey in Asia, — the honored father of the honored son whose learning serves his coun- try upon the bench of the United States Supreme Court, — writes to the editor of The Missionary as follows : — Manual labor missionaries are wanted among many unevangelized nations to make labor honorable. Slav- ery, we all know, tends to degrade labor. Barbarism turns it over in undue proportions upon females. I well remember before laboring in foreign lands, when spending a few weeks among the poor Indians on the Penobscot, an incident in point. Having provided my- self with several hoes, in the intervals of school I went out into the corn-fields and began to work. On see- ing this the Indian boys said in their broken English, " Schoolmaster no hoe ; woman he hoe." By perse- verance, however, before summer was past not a few of the boys got quite in the habit of helping their mothers in this work. 39 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Let it not be objected that such missionaries can- not be all the while engaged in public teaching ; neither was Paul. Missionaries of this class are needed on account of their knowledge of men and things and their experience in the common affairs of life. Mis- sionaries are required in all the varied departments of honest industry to perform the different kinds of mechanical labor and business on strictly Christian principles. ... I deem it one of the felicities of our new society that we shall not feel ourselves tied down in all things to precedents whose existence dates back little more than one generation. The forerunners, " not tied down to prece- dents," certainly did not get their ideas of in- dustrial training from those who introduced it twenty years later. It was good for Africa in 1847, as ^ always is for the masses of peoples developed or undeveloped. Mr. Raymond's hope of " self-sustaining missions," however, never had large realization. The theory is right, but in practise " self-supporting missions " have usu- ally proved to be financially very expensive. Again in 1847 this earnest missionary, Ray- mond, in Africa, writes : " I have in every way encouraged industry and have set the example, working with my hands. I have commenced me- chanical and agricultural departments with my school. Every boy in this school large enough must work; whether he is the son of a king or 40 Rev. Josiah Brewer FOREIGN MISSIONS a slave, it makes no difference. There are some who within a year have been sold like cattle, yet they are on the same footing with the sons of the king." When the first year of the Association closed, Mr. Raymond's manual labor school numbered one hundred pupils. The second Annual Report publishes " the most afflictive providence that has befallen the Mission in the death of its first mis- sionary to Africa." Mr. Raymond's work was one of heroic and incredible labor and remark- able accomplishment. The early progress of the Mission had been embarrassed by the outbreak- ing of a native war, yet during all this unpro- pitious period, the Mission school had greatly prospered, and its influence was felt far and wide. But by Mr. Raymond's death in 1847 the Mission lost its leading spirit, who had wisely shaped its early development. Thomas Bunyan, a converted native of Mendi, who had acted as interpreter and teacher, and who had become an efficient helper, was left in charge until re- enforcements arrived from the United States in the persons of Rev. George Thompson and Anson J. Carter, who reached Kaw-Mendi in July, 1848. Mr. Carter died eight days after he had arrived at the Mission. In November, 1849, Mr. Thomp- son was gladdened by the announcement of the 41 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION coming to his aid of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Brooks with Miss Sara Kinson (Mar-Gru, one of the Amistad captives who had remained in this country for eight years and had been educated here), but Mrs. Brooks died in Sierra Leone of the African fever before reaching Kaw-Mendi station. At this time the mission church numbered forty members, and the missionaries reported great en- couragement in the signs of increasing religious interest. A whole village gave up idolatry and were ministered unto by three native missionaries sent to them. The war between the tribes, which had been raging for several years, was at last brought to a close through the persistent efforts of Mr. Thompson. He was chosen umpire by contend- ing chiefs, and after repeated and trying excur- sions to interview and influence the different parties, he at length succeeded. It was a grand achievement which made for the extension and success of the Mission. " Already," he wrote, " there is a desire for the gospel and for living teachers such as was never known in this coun- try." The rulers and the people met him, eager to hear him preach. Another of the Amistad cap- tives, Kinna, had become an earnest evangelist among his countrymen. In 1850 Mr. Thompson returned to the United States to recruit his health 42 FOREIGN MISSIONS and to arouse the churches here to interest them- selves in African missions and also to secure re- enforcements for his field, Mr. Brooks being left in charge. In 185 1 eight missionaries arrived at Sierra Leone on their way to join the Mendi Mission, three of whom died of African fever in quick suc- cession soon after their arrival. The year 1851, which began with such bright hopes for the Mission, was darkly shadowed by these swift-following bereavements, but still the working force was larger than ever, and all the conditions seemed to facilitate the labors of the missionaries. The chiefs and their tribes were ready to hear the gospel; many gave up their idol-worship, and at the close of the year four- teen new members were added to the church. In 1853 seven new missionaries, five of them young women, joined the Mission. Everything promised well when war broke out again in the surrounding country. Mr. Brooks, as the head of the Mission, convinced that the planting of new mission stations would be the most effective method of securing and preserving peace among jealous chiefs, started two new missions, one quite a little distance in the interior, which he named " Mo-Tappan," and another on Sherbro Island called " Good Hope." 43 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION It was another sad blow to this Mission when Rev. Mr. Condit, whose preaching had been at- tended with marked success, died in 1854. The church at Kaw-Mendi, the original mis- sion station, now numbered ninety-six members. In January, 1855, three more young Christian women from the United States joined the Mis- sion. There had been thus far established the three central stations — Kaw-Mendi, Mo-Tappan, and Good Hope — and several out-stations, where schools were kept by natives who had been pre- pared by the missionaries. But it had now become evident that Kaw-Mendi was so ex- tremely perilous to health as to make it a duty to distribute the missionaries among other and healthier stations. In 1856 Rev. Mr. Thompson, after eight years of most faithful service, retired from the field. This was a great loss to the missions. Three new missionaries were sent out in 1857, one of them dying at Freetown before he had arrived at his mission station. Eight others joined the missionary forces in 1858. The death in this year of Mrs. Brooks — a second wife — who was a most efficient worker and who had remarkable success in the management of her school, was another severe blow to the Mission. Mr. Jowett, a young native, and Mr. Johnson, 44 FOREIGN MISSIONS another native somewhat advanced in years, were at this time ordained to preach the gospel, and at the beginning of 1859 four additional mis- sionaries with their wives, undismayed by the fact that each year was flecked with sorrow by the respective deaths of those who had devoted themselves to this work, gave new strength to the enterprise. Another promising young native also was licensed to preach by the " Mendi Asso- ciation." More than a thousand Mendi words had been collected, defined, and reduced to writ- ing. A primer had been compiled and was in process of printing. A translation of the Gospels had been begun. The work at the out-stations continued. Avery Station, one hundred and twenty miles southeast on the Bargroo River, named in com- memoration of the generous endowment of this mission to the amount of $100,000 by Rev. Charles Avery of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, es- tablished in 1859, was particularly prosperous. Within four years, five missionaries had been added to the force to make good the vacancies occasioned by death or to take the places of those who felt compelled to retire. Thus the years went on. In 1874 Barnabas Root, a native of the Mendi country, was sent by the Mission to the United States to prepare for 45 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION his work among his own people. Educated and graduated at Knox College and Chicago Theo- logical Seminary, he returned to his native land, having given promise here of a signally useful career. He began his work with enthusiasm and wisdom, but was soon stricken down by death. It is unutterably sad to think how many mis- sionaries fell before their work had fairly begun. The results so far as statistics may give them in this first field of the Association were about fifty missionaries heroically laboring with varying de- grees of success and for longer or shorter terms in five central stations with other points occu- pied as preaching stations. The churches organ- ized lived and grew, and the schools established taught successive generations of youth the ele- mentary studies and the duties of life. The first sawmill ever known in western Africa was in successful operation at Avery Station and had already paid for itself. It was regarded as a most useful adjunct of the Mission. The Association thus maintained the Mendi Mission for twenty-seven years. White mission- aries fearlessly followed each other with a rapid death-rate surely facing them and with many consequent changes and interruptions of prog- ress. That measureless holy influences were created and untold good was done is evident, 46 FOREIGN MISSIONS but it was at the cost of many precious lives. In view of this, it was decided to make trial of the freedmen of America, educated and trained in the higher institutions of the Association, as mis- sionaries. They could stand the climate, and it seemed to be a fitting thing that they should teach their own race the way of life. Seventeen of these in the years 1877-8, thought to be quali- fied for this work, took the places of those who had recently withdrawn from the missions and who had left them greatly weakened. It was hoped that thus the Christianization of Africa by ministers of African descent might be so suc- cessful as to prove that a way had been found to carry on this missionary enterprise without the bitter experience of the loss of so many precious lives. Owing to immaturity, both of experience and of judgment, the experiment was not satisfactory. The results proved it to be advisable for the As- sociation to return to its former methods. It was too soon — then, at least ; the children of the freedmen were not far enough removed from their antecedents. The last attainment in edu- cative development is a wise administrative abil- ity. Executive wisdom is the gift of long he- redity. It was too much to expect this fitness and power in young men not a score of years 47 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION out of slavery. The enthusiasm of humanity with a controlling consecration and with wise admin- istration does not come at once to an undeveloped people. The experiment would be more hopeful now than it was twenty-five years ago. In 1882 the question of a transfer of the for- eign work of the Association in the interest of greater concentration upon the pressing prob- lems of the homeland was considered, and early in the next year the Mendi Mission with its five mission stations and their property, its mis- sionary steamer used for transportation, and its thirty-five years of history was transferred to the " United Brethren,'' who already had an adjoin- ing mission on the West coast. Since that time the African missions under the care of the United Brethren have been largely and successfully developed. 48 Ill FOREIGN MISSIONS IN VARIOUS PLACES Sandwich Islands Mission. — West India Missions. — Siam Mission. — Rev. Dan Beach Bradley, m.d., Mission- ary intelligence. — Patriotism. — Mission closed in 1874. — Five years among the Copts in Egypt. — Mission among the refugees from slavery in Canada. Ill FOREIGN MISSIONS IN VARIOUS PLACES Sandwich Islands Mission IN 1846 the Rev. J. S. Green and wife, former missionaries of the A. B, C. F. M. in Ma- kawao Maui, came under the care of the Association. The church, consisting entirely of natives at this place, then numbered five hundred and thirty-nine members, with a large and flour- ishing Sunday-school. The mission had already become self-sustaining, — the first of the kind of which we have heard, — and as such was en- tirely successful. Three years later, Mr. Green writes : " As to the prospects of the people, I cannot conceal my fears. Not less probably than one-tenth of the Hawaiian nation have died since October, 1848." He adds : " As a church I am fully of the opinion that there is as much consistent piety as in most churches of my acquaintance in the United States; that Christians of the Sandwich Islands who some twenty-five years since were enveloped 51 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION in a darkness which might be felt, who were gross and stupid idolaters, addicted to all the vices that disgrace human nature, should in such short time become alert, intelligent, and in every respect pure and consistent Christians would be an anomaly in the Church of Christ. That many of them are aiming to become thus I believe." In confirmation of Mr. Green's statement a quotation from the Annual Report of 1852 says: " The church, which is self-supporting, raised the past year $800 toward building a place of wor- ship. It also contributes to the antislavery cause in the United States. One native church has sent $100 to be expended in a prize tract on the sinfulness of American slavery. The interest of these Christian Hawaiians in behalf of the con- version of the oppressed in our own land is very cheering." In 1855 we read that Rev. Mr. Green has two churches under his care with an aggregate of one thousand members. The interest of the Association was active in the Sandwich Islands until the year 1873, when the Committee on Foreign Missions at the an- nual meeting made a report recommending with- drawal from the foreign field, since " Providence, which had unmistakably directed the first work to foreign missions, had of late years directed 52 FOREIGN MISSIONS to a concentration of effort in behalf of the col- ored race in the United States." West India Missions The missions among the emancipated negroes in the Island of Jamaica came under the care of the Association in 1847. They consisted of four central stations and three out-stations. Year by year the reports expressed the hopes and fears, the joys and trials, of mission life. In 1851, for example, one writes, " I believe there never was a more important time to work in Jamaica than now." The enlargement of operations is strongly recommended. " There are great destitutions all over the island, and requests are continually com- ing in to us to establish new stations. We must, however, have more men if we would successfully prosecute the work of evangelizing Jamaica." Again in 1853 we read: "In many respects this field is a hard one. The inheritances of slavery are not easily overcome; the vices which it engendered have still strong hold, and the mission has already realized that the hope of the future is in the youth whom they are educating and training away from the evils which corrupt and destroy." A year later eight churches and ten schools, with over seven hun- 53 / AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION dred pupils, were reported. Thus the mission went on as evangelistic work does and as Chris- tian schools do, gaining little by little upon the ignorance and hereditary vices of the poor people whose hard lot in slavery left them not greatly better than their ancestors in Africa. But dur- ing all this steady, patient, and inconspicuous service, others besides the black people of Ja- maica were being educated. Though at the time they comprehended it not, all this process and experience with schools and churches was pre- paring the Association and its officers for the greater mission which was in the womb of the future and to be born in the fulness of time. There is a science of missions which comes by observation and experience extending through the years. The thoughts and plans of mission- ary workers, their tentative endeavors, successes and failures, are the material out of which this science is evolved. The lessons of non-success and the reasons which appear in practical expe- rience are sometimes as useful in the way of caution and teaching what may not be under- taken, as are the lessons of achievement which indicate the methods of a wise and energetic development. The missions among the emanci- pated blacks of Jamaica were rich in lessons, both negative and positive, which were to make the As- 54 FOREIGN MISSIONS sociation a providential agency when God's pur- poses should ripen ; and they were ripening fast. The mission was continued until 1873, when the schools were made over to the government of Jamaica. Later the churches were transferred to the watch and care of the Baptist denomina- tion, and the Association withdrew from the island. Siam Mission The Siam mission was adopted in 1848 by a curious kind of transfer from the American Board. Rev. Dan Beach Bradley, m.d., who had been a missionary of the American' Board in Siam, but whose " views were thought to be incompatible " with that body, explained to the Association the inharmonious relations of himself and his associate, Rev. Jesse Caswell, with it, and gave an interesting history of the mission. That the Association did not consider the " heresies " dangerous, appears from the adoption of the fol- lowing resolution : " Resolved, That the estab- lishment of a mission at Siam, and the accept- ance by the Executive Committee of the service of our esteemed brethren, Messrs. Bradley and Caswell, meet with the full approbation of the Association; that it be recommended to the Ex- ecutive Committee to sustain this interesting 55 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Mission." Letters from the Prudential Commit- tee of the A. B. C. F. M. highly commendatory of these brethren and dismissing them from con- nection with the Board, made allusion to the alleged " doctrinal errors " which in the judg- ment of the Board ended their usefulness as missionaries in Siam. It will be interesting in this year of our Lord to know what was so objectionable as to warrant this action. It is contained in the statement of Mr. Caswell, to which Dr. Bradley gave his substantial assent, adding that since he had come to this country he had been led to question the propriety of infant baptism. He thought the " Biblical au- thority " for this rite " somewhat doubtful." He frankly informed the Executive Committee that the separation from the American Board was " not from choice, nor made until it had been requested." The statement is as follows : — I believe and teach that the provisions of grace are such as to authorize the Christian to look to Christ with the confident hope and expectation of receiving all the aid he needs to enable him to do all the will of God, or, in other words, to love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. Consequently, I do not, as some suppose, set aside the grace of Christ or the constant dependence on that grace. Whatever available power to obey God we have is a free gift of his grace. 56 Rev. Dan B. Bradley, M.D., Missionary to Siam FOREIGN MISSIONS I believe that the answer to the 149th question in the " Larger Catechism," which says, " No mere man is able either by himself or by any grace received in this life perfectly to keep the commands of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed," goes beyond what can be proved by the Bible. While I have not thought that any actually have attained or will attain in this life to a state of entire and continued exemption from sin, I believe that to affirm the converse of this proposition is going be- yond what we have Scripture authority for so doing. The Association felt that if there were no greater heresies than these, there was no dis- qualification for missionary service, and Dr. Bradley returned to work with his colleague. Siam proper, at whose capital, Bangkok, the mission was created, comprised about one hun- dred and sixty square miles, and had then a pop- ulation of about four million people who spoke twelve different languages and formed as many- different classes. The prevailing religion of Buddhism challenged all the faith and courage of those who sought to displace it with the gospel, but these brethren, strong in the faith that the gospel of Christ is the true power of God unto salvation, under this new society, which was not afraid of their theological errors, went cheerfully to their work. The new year had scarcely opened when the 57 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tidings came of Mr. Caswell's death. Three months after he had received the notice of his appointment and while the thanksgivings of the Association for the gift of so .valuable a mis- sionary were being expressed, he was suddenly called to higher service in the heavenly world. Dr. Bradley wrote, " While I have had moments of feeling that I should sink under this last bil- low of sorrow, yet my head has been kept above its crest by a present service." The letters of Dr. Bradley, published from time to time in The American Missionary, are models of missionary intelligence, describing the climate, soil, physical characteristics, and prod- ucts of the country, the people, their dress, their dwellings, their streets, their habits of thought, their methods of life, their schools, their indus- tries, the mines and minerals, and whatever is peculiar to Siam, with the moral and religious conditions and capabilities. They are intensely interesting reading for their vivid expression and literary excellence, now after the events which he so graphically pictured are three-score years away. In his pleading for missionary aid, for example, he writes : " True, it is a long way from our native land, but it is rapidly becoming nearer every year. When the Oregon railroad is done it will be within thirty-live days of New York! 58 FOREIGN MISSIONS And when our telegraph wires are made to cross Behring Strait, we can hold converse with our friends by lightning power." His letters are most optimistic also as to the religious future of Siam, but he confesses at the same time that his hopes do not rest in any marked visible results. " It seems to me," he writes in 1851, "that the truths of the gospel are spreading and increasing the light, and my confidence that now God is going to perform a great work here does not fail me." At the same time he adds, " I am not aware that any of my hearers for the last seven or eight months have been brought into the kingdom." In 1852 the mission reports " great encour- agement." Dr. Bradley has been made physi- cian to the king and the royal family, and has preached to several large assemblies within the palace walls ; at the same time the mission labors without much apparent success. An illustration of the spirit of Dr. Bradley is seen in a quotation from his letter to the Association dated Bangkok, Siam, August 19, 1863:- I wish to devote $300 of the enclosed draft as a small item of aid to our government in carrying on the war for crushing out that atrocious rebellion. My whole heart ascends to God in prayer continu- 59 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION ally for our war cause. Please pay over to the War Department as soon as you well can the sum above named. I have a son in his twentieth year who would, I doubt not, enlist as a volunteer in the army if he were living in the States. And I feel that in such a case I should not dare to do anything to withhold him from it. He as well as myself and his mother con- sider $300 as a very cheap substitute for his services in the army one year. For twenty-six years this mission, with six devoted missionaries most of the time, labored on in hope and in disappointment. Ten years had passed when The American Missionary re- ported, " We doubt whether an amount of mis- sionary labor equal to what has been employed in Siam has ever before been expended with so little visible result," and yet the same pages said, " Siam as a missionary field is at the present more inviting than it has ever been." During the entire period the work in Siam continued after this manner, characterized by consecrated ability, fidelity, and patience, and with little apparent result, when Dr. Bradley died in 1874 and his son, the only male missionary remaining, re- turned to this country, and the Siam Mission was closed. 60 FOREIGN MISSIONS Among the Copts in Egypt A mission among the Copts was undertaken in 1854. It did not prove to be hopeful, and after five years was discontinued. In 1859 it was taken up by the United Presbyterians. Canada Mission In 1848 the Association followed the slave refugees into Canada. Fugitives in great num- bers who had settled here and there in Canada were distressingly poor and pitiably ignorant. The most reliable estimates of the number of these fugitives who had reached Canada desti- tute and in want of all things placed them at about forty thousand. Schools were established for these, and teachers for them were sent from the States. Several little churches were organ- ized, one of them reporting one hundred mem- bers and another sixty-one. After twelve years of this endeavor we read in the Annual Report of i860: " Missionary labor has accomplished all that under the circumstances could reasonably be expected, and is an encour- agement to increased efforts to supply these fugi- tives with educational and religious advantages. 61 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Good schools and a faithful ministry ought to be liberally sustained." In 1863 the supreme demand of the newly emancipated slaves claimed and almost absorbed the care and the strength of the Association and made the withdrawal from this work in Canada a strategic missionary necessity. 62 IV MISSION AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS Mission among the O jib was in the Territory of Min- nesota, Red Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnipeg; the Ottawas at Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan. — New In- dian policy in 1870 through Gen. U. S. Grant, President of the United States. — The Board of Peace Commis- sioners. — Rev. E. P. Smith given general supervision of the Association's Indian Missions. — Great improve- ment among the tribes. — Transfer of the Indian Mis- sions in the great Sioux Reservation in Dakota Territory by the A. B. C. F. M. to the Association in exchange for African Missions. — Development of educational work under Rev. A. L. Riggs, d.d., at Santee, Nebraska, and at Oahe under Rev. T. L. Riggs, d.d. — Missions at Fort Berthold under Rev. Charles L. Hall. — Missions minis- tered unto by Miss Mary C. Collins. — Rosebud. — Fort Yates. — The story of Yellow Hawk. — Testimonies of Rev. Mary C. Collins as to results in twenty-five years, and of Dr. Thomas L. Riggs upon the changed and changing conditions of the Indian tribes and the causes of these changes. IV MISSION AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS WHILE these events were transpiring in foreign lands, earnest attention was given to Indian missions in our own country. These could scarcely be designated as " foreign," and yet they were not embraced in what was called " The Home Department." In the second Annual Report of the Association, 1847, we rea d of the " new work among the Ojibwa or Chippewa Indians in the reservations of the Territory of Minnesota." These were a part of the Algonquin race, one of the two most powerful races of the continent. Their lan- guage was remarkable as being singularly per- fect and euphonic, with some striking analogies to the Hebrew. At the Red Lake Station there were six hun- dred Indians, about one-half of whom were under sixteen years of age. They were cultivat- ing one hundred and fifty acres of land and had harvested within the year more than two thou- sand bushels of corn and fourteen hundred 5 65 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION bushels of potatoes, besides other products of their garden. The Indian families had also made an average of from four hundred to five hundred pounds of sugar each. There were eight native members of the church. In the Cass Lake Station, the whole number of Indians was two hundred. " When the sta- tion was commenced in the spring of 1846, but four or five families planted their grounds. Nearly all depended on the precarious supply of wild rice which they could gather from the swamps along the margin of the lake." In a few years twenty-five families had their little fields of corn and several of them had builded houses for their families. Some chil- dren from every family were in the well-attended school. In 1857 these missions, owing to diffi- culties among the Indians and the disturbed con- dition of the country, were removed from the reservation to the west shore of Lake Winnipeg. Two years later, letters from the mission in- dicated that the missionaries were rapidly com- ing to the conclusion that after thirteen years the discouragements had become so great that this particular field should be relinquished. At the same time the Association took under its care a mission among the Ojibwas and the Ottawas in the northwestern part of Michigan at 66 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS Grand Traverse Bay. The church consisted of fifty-eight members, seven of them being whites. This mission continued until 1869. In 1870 a new Indian policy and work was inaugurated. President Grant has the honor of being the first chief magistrate of the nation to propose citizenship for the Indians. He had the sagacity to see that the Indians could never hope to attain to the degree of civilization essential to citizenship under the conditions which then existed. In his inaugural address he had fore- shadowed his policy. " The proper treatment of the original occupants of the land — the Indians — is one deserving careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship." Up to that time for scores of years the tutorage by agents and speculators in the schools of fraud and whisky had well-nigh destroyed all the efforts of the schools and churches and missionaries to introduce a policy of truth, justice, humanity, and peace. To set on foot a system of education and reform was one of the acts of President Grant's administration to be remembered. It was the beginning of a new day for the Indian. The first movement was the appointment, under an act of Congress, of a Board of Peace Commissioners composed of men from different parts of the 67 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION country whose names carried the assurance of wisdom and honesty. The next step was to in- vite the cooperation of Christian missionary so- cieties, and to give to them the selection of Indian agents under whom the appointment of govern- ment teachers, physicians, carpenters, and black- smiths provided for by treaty was made. The American Missionary Association was requested to select from these agents, and was the first to accept and adopt the new work offered. The appointments and assignments were as follows: Rev. E. P. Smith, Agent of the Chippewas of the Mississippi; Rev. S. M. Clark, Agent of the Chippewas of the Superior ; Rev. W. T. Richard- son, Agent of the Menomonees and Oneidas in Wisconsin; Edwin Eells, Agent of the Skoko- mish Indians in Washington Territory. Rev. E. P. Smith held the position of secretary of the Indian missions with the general supervision of this work of the Association among the Indians. At the commencement of this policy to reclaim the Indians from their wandering, savage life, and to turn their thoughts away from cruel pas- sions toward peace and good-will, not one family in fifty, the Oneidas excepted, were living in houses, and even these who were thus sheltered had no land to which they had any title. Nearly all were living in blankets and wigwams. 68 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS In 1872 the four Indian agencies had become seven: the Chippewa in Minnesota, Lake Supe- rior and Green Bay in Wisconsin, Fort Berth- old and Sisseton in Dakota Territory, Skokomish in Washington Territory, and the " Mission In- dians " in California. These agencies contin- ued for ten years, which were, on the whole, years of great advancement for all the tribes, though after the administration of General Grant had passed, there was less sympathetic coopera- tion with the missionary societies in the Depart- ment of the Interior at Washington. In the thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Executive Com- mittee we read : " The peace policy of General Grant, which was continued by President Hayes, has been productive of great and lasting good to the Indians, but . . . reasons have served to diminish the interest once taken by the officials at Washington in the cooperation of the religious bodies." The year 1882 marked a significant advance in the Indian missions of the Association when it transferred the mission in Africa to the Ameri- can Board, and took on the mission in Dakota and Nebraska, which the American Board had formerly maintained. Two problems which immediately presented themselves were the development of the educa- 69 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tional work which has its center at Santee, Ne- braska, under Rev. A. L. Riggs, d.d., the head of a school which numbered one hundred pupils of both sexes and all ages; and the extension of the evangelizing work which had its main center at Oahe in Dakota, under the superin- tendence of Rev. Thomas L. Riggs, d.d. The whole Sioux tribe of twenty-five thousand souls had received but comparatively little missionary attention. At Santee the Indians, under the ten years of successful mission work of the American Board, had accepted Christianity and maintained a church with more than two hundred members presided over by a native Indian pastor. They were settled on their farms and were developing in intelligence and enterprise. At Oahe, two hun- dred miles up the Missouri River from Santee, and near the center from north to south of the great Sioux Reservation, some twenty-five In- dian families had settled as home traders. These also had become Christians and conducted their meetings with fervor and decorum. Beyond these two stations, the Indians in their encampments, in their natural conditions untamed, and but re- cently off from the war-path, dwelt in tents and log huts, wholly ignorant of agriculture, and fed by the rations of the government. They ap- peared, however, to be willing to learn farming 70 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS and desirous to know more of " the white man's ways." From these two centers there seemed to be in the situation a strong appeal for enlarge- ment of mission work. Beyond the great Sioux Reservation at the northern edge of Dakota Territory, almost to the British line, was Fort Berthold, under the care of Rev. Charles L. Hall. Here were three different tribes speaking entirely different tongues from that of the Dakota Sioux who had been for years their bitter foes. As yet they were unin- fluenced by Christian instruction, though some of them had made a beginning in the way of agriculture. Outside of these mission stations the barbarism and rudeness of life cannot well be understood by those who have not seen it. This was the condition of the Indian fields and work when the Association entered upon its new duties in 1882. An immediate advance was made in missionary endeavor at Santee Normal Training School and at Oahe. New buildings were constructed and a large number of instructors appointed. New stations also were undertaken in different locali- ties. Miss Mary C. Collins was transferred to the special charge of the mission at Grand River. Rev. James F. Cross was appointed to a new mission at Rosebud Station, and Rev. 7i AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION George W. Reed to Standing Rock, otherwise called Fort Yates. These were new recruits from Yale and Hartford Theological Seminaries. Many new out-stations both for white and for native teachers were soon entered upon, several native churches were organized, and buildings were erected for them. Thence onward as before, the Riggs brothers patiently and quietly have devoted their lives. The young men — now no longer young — have seen great transformations in the quarter century of their missionary con- secration. Miss Collins' teaching and ministry have been of most effective and heroic service. The Indian work has been out of sight, and has not been greatly heralded, but the Indian friends have not been ignorant of the faithful efforts made to save the wild tribes of the original in- habitants of our country. No adequate recog- nition can be made of the moral and spiritual results of such a life-work as that of the Riggs brothers and their equally devoted wives, or of the noble consecration of Miss M. C. Collins, or of the quarter century of faithful and earnest work of the missionaries Hall, Reed, and Cross in their isolated stations. Twenty-six years have passed since the trans- fer of the Indian missions from the American Board to the Association. The years have been 72 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS largely those of readjustment, and the settling into place on the part of the tribes. The uncon- scious movement toward civilization has made it hard for the native Christian Indian to keep up with the steadily advancing procession, yet, writes Dr. Thomas L. Riggs, " The Christian Indian is the only man of them all who anywhere near keeps his place and holds fast what he has. The pace is more rapid than ever before." The work is, and doubtless will be, full of difficulties that often try the faith and patience of these devoted missionaries; at the same time it is rewarded with encouragements that cause them to say, " We are more than thankful that it has been given us to live and be a part of it." The story of " Yellow Hawk," as told by Gen. Charles H. Howard, while it may not be repre- sentative of all Indians, is typical of very many. In 1872 Dr. Thomas L. Riggs with General Howard drove to Yellow Hawk's village. " We found the tall young chief standing by his log cabin. He was idle and listless in aspect, in- dustry and education being the farthest from his thoughts. He had on blanket and leggings, and the partings of his hair were painted yellow; otherwise his features and expression were of the better Indian type. " Five years later, in the autumn of 1877, I 73 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION landed from a steamboat at Peoria Bottom, to- gether with Dr. Stephen R. Riggs, Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, and a number of others, who had come to attend the ' Annual Mission Meeting ' of the Dakota Indian churches, held for the first time in this Teton country. Delegates had come over- land from the Sisseton tribe, on the Minnesota border, some two hundred and thirty miles dis- tant, and others had come up from the Flandreau settlements, and from Yankton and the Santee agencies, three hundred miles away. " It is not within the purpose of this sketch to describe this meeting, though it was in its encampment and Indian customs picturesque and interesting. One of the discussions, conducted wholly in the Dakota tongue, related to marriage, and was suggested by the fact that some of the candidates for church-membership had more than one wife. Yellow Hawk had three wives, though Spotted Bear, another chief, had but one. It was decided, after sympathetic considering of all the difficulties, that the candidate must be mar- ried in Christian fashion to one of the wives, and that he was to put away the others, but see to their support. " I again saw Yellow Hawk. Five years older, he had greatly changed in looks. He was now wearing citizen's clothes, could read, having 74 T. L. Riggs, LL.D. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS learned with some seventeen others of the adult Indians in a night school, the first winter it was established. He attended some of the meetings and was reading his Bible. He had a fairly good field of corn, and had begun to show a disposition to work. " Mr. Riggs had secured the survey of the bottom lands for the purpose of settling the In- dians upon farms. In 1880, as soon as the sur- vey was filed, Mr. Riggs went with two of the chiefs, Yellow Hawk and Spotted Bear, to the land office at Springfield, near Yankton, and assisted them in making homestead entries. The United States registrar thought he had no right to accept the filing of an Indian, and so the party went to the United States judge of the district, and the two Indians were regularly naturalized. This was a novel thing for one who was American-born, and whose ancestors had been natives of the country. Since then it has been decided officially to be unnecessary. Twenty-one other homestead entries were sub- sequently made by these Indians on Peoria Bottom. " In 1882 my duties as Indian Inspector brought me again in this vicinity, and I saw Yellow Hawk and Spotted Bear. They both had become members of the church which had been 75 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION organized here in 1879. Two of Yellow Hawk's wives had died — one some years before — and he was formally married to the one remaining at the time he united with the church. Any other candidates who had more than one wife followed the rule mentioned, and were married to the one who had been the first wife, and kindly cared for the other or others. As a matter of fact, it should be stated that there was not gen- erally a plurality of wives among these Indians. The greater number had but one wife. " At the time of this visit, ten years after my first meeting with Yellow Hawk, I heard him lead in prayer in the chapel, and also saw him in his field riding a mower which he had bought. He had also acquired some cattle. " My next opportunity for observing, in this personal way, the effect of missionary teaching, was in the winter of 1885, when Yellow Hawk accompanied Mr. Riggs in a tour through New England, visiting the churches and public meet- ings, and presenting the cause of Indian Mis- sions. Yellow Hawk made his own talk, and Mr. Riggs interpreted. Great indeed was the contrast between the appearance of the blanket Indian I had seen leaning against his cabin in 1872, and Yellow Hawk in 1885 as he now stood on the platform, erect, manly, addressing cul- 76 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS tured audiences, and telling what he and his people had been, and what the gospel had done for him." At the present writing, over twenty-one years later, Yellow Hawk and Spotted Bear each holds the position of pastor to a native church and mis- sionary station, elected by the members. Among these Indians pertaining to the Cheyenne River Agency, Dr. Thomas L. Riggs has at the pres- ent time eight organized churches under his charge. His work has also been extended north- ward about one hundred and twenty-five miles to Grand River, where Miss M. C. Collins, who was formerly with him here at Oahe, has been laboring efficiently for many years and where she has now under her care five stations among the followers of Sitting Bull. On this same reserva- tion (Standing Rock) farther north are also five stations under the care of Rev. G. W. Reed. The similar gospel work among the large tribes of the Rosebud Reservation, located one hundred and fifty miles to the southwest, has greatly prospered. Dr. T. L. Riggs now has the supervision of finding native helpers for these tribes, Rev. J. F. Cross, formerly in charge, hav- ing been transferred to Alaska. I have asked these missionaries to give me their own estimates of the results of these patient 77 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION years. Those of Rev. Mary C. Collins and of Dr. Thomas L. Riggs may stand for all. Says Miss Collins, " When the Indians were without Christ it needed a standing army to control them. The banks of the Missouri River were dotted with military posts, and thousands of soldiers were stationed along its banks, well-armed with rifles, and ready at a moment's warning to go after hostile Indians who were committing severe depredations among the early settlers or upon other tribes. This has all practically passed away. One after another the forts were aban- doned as churches increased. The last to go was the one on this Standing Rock Agency. Thus the missionaries are saving to the government millions of dollars. The old restlessness of the tribes is passing away; they are settling down on their own allotted lands and building up homes, and the little children are no longer happy in the roving life, but when night comes cry for home. Nothing could have brought about this change but the religion of Christ. For scores of years the military tried to subdue the people and it was impossible. But when the churches took up the matter in earnest and we placed the Bible in the homes and taught the people to read it, the story of Jesus with his love and wonderful power won their hearts, and many 78 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS have bowed in submission to the laws of man, because they accord with the laws of God. The building of a church and beside it a Y. M. C. A. house, makes a social as well as a religious center; and the Christian influence going out from it causes a wild and insubordinate race of people to become gentle, kind, and industri- ous. They cannot pray to the heavenly Father daily without being uplifted to a better life. " Where the wigwam was the only home, and wild deer and the buffalo the only larder, we find now the two- or three-room cabin, the well- washed floor, the neat beds and pillows. We find the cellar in the side stored with potatoes and other vegetables, corn and oats in the stable ready for the patient steed that must round up the flocks or draw freight for the government to earn their daily bread. For years these people were fed by the government and cared for by the United States Army, but the government could not civilize them, and only as fast as the mis- sionaries could reach and teach them were they subdued. " Our mission schools have sent out hundreds of young men and women to act as living, work- ing object-lessons among the people from every tribe. These Christian fathers and mothers, home- makers and home-keepers, teachers and minis- 79 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION ters, doctors and lawyers, all owe their present honored and useful position in life to our good Christian schools. Santee, the largest and old- est, furnishes every year a large number of well- trained young men and women to lead the van on the way to the best civilization. Its shops furnish blacksmiths and carpenters. Its fields send us farmers, and its homes send us women of character to be a light unto the people. " But the work is not done. The temptations coming now are not the temptations of the war- path, the wild dance, or the painted faces and scalp-locks. They have come from the very civi- lization that we are trying to teach them to meet. The white man comes, — in many cases an outlaw, — and when he arrives in these far-off places he is lawless indeed, and leaves none of his vices behind him; but his skin is white, and to the unskilled child of the prairie with the red skin he is a man of the new civi- lization. His faults and vices make him a hero, and the weak fall under his influence. More solid Christians, men and women, are needed to hold these white men upright. The American Missionary Association has built twelve or four- teen new churches for the Indians. It has put on the field three new men to superintend mis- sionaries. It has taken up several new stations 80 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS for work, and planted the banner of our Lord on the outposts. It has struggled to keep it there and not to retreat. But the officers of an army cannot win a battle; that is fought by the great army of men behind them. So a great body of Christians must stand back of the Association in its working out of its great desire." Especially it would be impossible to trace the gracious influences of the school at Santee dur- ing the past twenty-six years as it has been ad- ministered by Rev. Alfred L. Riggs, d.d. Year by year these children of nature have come half wild to Santee. Aboriginal, yet foreign, unable to speak our language, unacquainted with the ways of civilization, ignorant of Christianity, they have acquired from text-books used in our best schools a good English education with facil- ity in the accurate use of the English tongue without losing their own, a practical knowledge of the handicrafts and of successful agriculture, and best of all the way of life taught by Him who said, " I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Dr. Thomas L. Riggs contributes the follow- ing as his experience of the changed and changing conditions of our first Americans : " The native American is conservative. He does not change readily in 'his habits of life, his 6 81 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION customs, or his speech. That which has been has served his fathers, and why should it not answer for his fathers' sons? Nevertheless the changes that have taken place affecting him are marked and far-reaching. From being a rover at will he has now come to have a more or less settled abiding-place. From getting his living as a hunter of the abundant games of the woodland and vast prairies, and from the life of a warrior, he has become a peaceful tiller of the soil, a stock man, a freighter, and a day-laborer for hire, that he may support himself and keep the wolf from his door. And instead of the old tribal organization in which the chief stood for the tribe in dealing with others, and in a measure controlled and directed the movements of his followers, we now have as the social unit the family and the individual. While in some cases the tribal organization is still partially in force, it nowhere has the vitality and importance for- merly existing. This change is so great and marks so important a growth as to call for more than mention only. To those who know Indians and have had direct dealings with them, there is but little meaning in the word ' chief.' The utter looseness of Indian political life is little known to the outside world. From the usually published account of visitors every other Indian 82 A. L. RlGGS, D.D. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS seems to be a ' chief ' or a ' chief's ' son. This is to be accounted for by the fact that in addi- tion to the recognized leaders of the tribe there are sub-chiefs and heads of important families, and moreover every Indian has the happy faculty of assuming himself to be the representative of his tribe. He enjoys the joke there is in fooling the white man. There are, however, those who are no chiefs. Chiefs sometimes, though rarely in my own acquaintance with the Dakotas, oc- cupy their positions by virtue of inheritance — being in the royal line, the sons of chiefs. The more common path to chieftainship is that of in- dividual ability. And, even then, the man comes into prominence by the support of his followers. The political life of the Indian is largely demo- cratic. No chief can long disregard the wishes or run counter to the traditions and hopes of his following. The individual, though intensely democratic, glories in the fact that he belongs to the tribe, and he follows his chief because the chief represents him, — represents his thought and purpose in life. Thus it is readily seen that in the nature of things, as with the average poli- tician among ourselves, the head of a tribe is rarely progressive. Tribal organization in itself has always opposed civilization. It could not do otherwise, for civilization means its downfall. 83 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION And without any qualification it may be here remarked that where any form of this organ- ization exists, however loose and stripped of its former power, there you have a chilling shadow in the way of civilization and progress. It is therefore with peculiar satisfaction that the stu- dent of Indian affairs and worker for his uplift sees the overthrow of the tribal organization. " I call attention also to the fact that in the changes already noted — change in habitat, change in occupation, and change in tribal or- ganization — the Indian has been acted upon from without. It has been by no choice of his that he became a Reservation Indian, and through the years of government support has come under the system of working for his own support. It has been by no wish of his that the old tribal organization has largely come to its end. These changes have been forced upon him. This should be borne in mind, and I shall refer to it again. " Self-support and self-government are two changes now taking place. With these the In- dian is already face to face, and whether he likes it or not he must become a self-supporting in- dividual. All others will sooner or later go to the wall. And to a certain extent the Indian is learning how to do this. Self-government comes slowly. As yet the spell of the old order is upon 84 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS him. He cannot readily free himself from that to which he has been accustomed, which brought control and redress from powers outside his own will. The individual has always looked to his tribal head or to his tribe for protection, and later, when suffering a real or fancied injury, to the government Indian Agent. When he was the aggressor he escaped punishment altogether if he could. " Another change that i-s surely coming — and already partly has come — is accountability to law and protection by law. In a measure fed- eral laws are enforced upon the Reservations and state laws off the Reservations. As might be ex- pected, the Indian comes in contact with law in punishment for transgression quite frequently before he recognizes in it the protection it offers. Nevertheless this also is coming. An old French- man who had an Indian wife and a large family living on the Cheyenne River Reservation, and who had grown wealthy in cattle, died not long ago, leaving his property by will duly executed to be divided equally between his wife and nine children. The executor, — a son-in-law, — on the suggestion and advice of his attorney, at- tempted to shut out two of the daughters from their inheritance. Suit was brought by one of the daughters, and the estate was ordered settled 85 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION according to the terms of the will. A single case of this kind is of far greater value than any amount of preaching. " Industrial competition is another of the changes that are coming, and for which it must be confessed the Indian is not yet prepared. You cannot expect him to compete with his white neighbors. He has not been taught by the school of adversity and hard knocks, nor has he learned to care for and save what he has under the new conditions of life. It takes more than the allot- ment of land, the purchase of full farming equip- ment and a cow, the cutting of his hair and clothing him in trousers to fit him for this. He must be taught values, — the value of time as well as property, thrift, and stick-to-itiveness. His character must be established, and the man, the man with a mind and a soul, must be devel- oped under his new conditions. " There is but one other outward or national change that I shall mention, namely, Absorption into our body politic. This change is already tak- ing place, though so gradually as not to be noticed. It does not mean that the race is to die out ; but it means that there will be no Indians as such; all will be citizens of our common country. This change will not be completed in a day nor yet in a year. All changes that have taken place, 86 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS and those now in the making, as well as of the near future, are summed up in this. Difficult problems are to be adjusted — economic, social, and educational. Influences that have been brought to bear on the outer man alone, pro- ducing changes external and changing form rather than spirit will sink into insignificance as compared with those that go to the making of character. Nothing else will stand the test and nothing else will safely carry the Indian across the rivers of difficulty and evil that flow around and over him. Our government with all the agencies it commands and with all the millions it expends cannot supply to the Indian this one thing most needful. And by character I mean not only mental equipment and training but that which makes such equipment and training fruit- ful, — the training of conscience, the training of soul, a training so broad and deep as to make life honest and true, and which shall bring the man into relations with his God. " Now consider the active forces that have brought about these changes already accom- plished and have to do with preparing the In- dian to meet the conditions of life in his new environment. Chief of these are the following: The Reservation and the ration system, industrial instruction at large, the schools, the allotment of 87 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION land in severalty and Christian missions. All these have had a part in the changes. As active agencies some are outgrown, some have only begun to be effective, and some have not had due recognition, though long active and with the largest opportunities and possibilities for the future. " Not to mention the Reservation with its evils, and the government method of issuing rations, both of which have been influences against in- dependent manhood, and both of which were forced upon the Indian, I come to the agency of industrial instruction. For as if to make amends for evils we did not foresee — and with the best of motives — we diligently set about training the Indians in the industries of civilized life. They were to be taught how to farm and to raise cattle. Year after year many thousands of dollars were expended in sending to them as teachers farmers who did not know how to farm, and whose time was usually taken up in entirely different lines; in the purchase of seeds by the ton that often reached the Indian too late to be planted; and in the purchase of stock cattle, that sooner or later in most cases were killed and eaten by the recipients. In some cases, indeed, there has been careful oversight of these matters by the agent in charge; then, 88 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS again, all that was gained has been lost by a change of agents. This branch of well-intended education has been shamefully mismanaged. Haphazard administration and shiftless govern- ment oversight has been the history of the years that have gone by. The results therefore have been discreditably small for the vast expenditures of money. To be sure, the Indian has had his hair cut and wears trousers and a hat, and in- directly doubtless has learned something by it. " Following, and partly coordinate with, this industrial experiment an active educational cam- paign was begun in the schools. There are now twenty-five non-reservation schools, ninety- one reservation boarding-schools, and one hun- dred and sixty-three reservation day-schools car- ried on by the government. It would not be just to say that these schools are not doing good work. Probably the most of them are, but I think much greater good would have followed had a rational system of true education obtained from the beginning. I agree with the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs in rating the day- school as the most helpful and important, and probably go beyond him in his condemnation of the government boarding-school on the Reserva- tion as a system and in its present almshouse and pauperizing condition. Very possibly there 89 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION may have been justification for the large non- reservation school in the past, but with an an- nual expenditure of two million dollars we have a right to ask larger and more satisfactory re- sults than those of the past. " Another agency that is doing its work in showing the Indian the way out of his past, and into the new condition of life, is the allotment of land in severalty, and the breaking up of the Reservation system. Much has been said about this movement and much was expected to come from it. There were, however, difficulties in the way. The less advanced Indian would have none of it, and many who received land waited only till they could dispose of it for a 'mess of pot- tage.' The dreams of good men were thus soon disturbed. The plan has not worked. It has been found necessary to safeguard the allotments, and the end desired, namely, industrious Indians supported by their own labor on their own farms, may not be universally assured for some time to come. However, men learn by their mistakes as well as by their successes, and in like manner there doubtless have been gains of a sort to the Indian. " The last agency that I shall name as active in the effort to open the eyes of the Indian that he may see clearly his changed environment and 90 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS fit himself for its new duties and its privileges is that of Christian missions and Christian schools. Christian missions among the Indians have from the first aimed at their moral uplift; aimed to open their eyes and awaken their souls that they may see clearly and choose for them- selves that which is good. This agency has looked to the development of the man from within, rather than from without; has stood for the growth of character, and has counted all else as secondary and subordinate to this. In this lies the great difference between Christian mis- sions, Christian schools, and all other agencies. The one has endeavored to help the man as a thinking, reasoning being; the other agencies have greatly overlooked this and have endeav- ored to change his outer appearance; teaching him industries, not as giving him power to con- trol himself, but as an occupation; teaching him the English language, not as a means to an end, but as the end itself. " Through our Christian missions there is a change in attitude on the part of the Indian, a change in thought and outlook of far more im- portance than all others, for it marks the growth of manhood, and gives us permanent hope for the future. The Indian is coming to think of himself in relation to others. He is recognizing 9i AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION the life and aims of civilization as that of which he is a part. He is looking to the meaning of things and to their effect on the future. The spirit of Christianity — even with those not professing Christianity — has greatly changed the Indians' thought. This has been an uncon- scious movement, and slowly but powerfully is transforming whole tribes. But this has not come without open and persistent opposition. " The Indian missions of The American Mis- sionary Association have endeavored all these years to build up character, to make men of char- acter, to make thinking, reasoning men. In this zve have not failed. We have taught the gospel of Christ, — that Christ came to save men from evil; that every man, Indian or white, must do his part; that life means work; that religion is more than an outward change; that also means a change of heart which calls for and ensures outward changes. " Our missions and schools have been the only constant agencies to follow consistently this rational plan to save the Indian. No other agency than that which is positively Christian has in view the religious nature of the Indian. No other schools than Christian schools can be expected to raise up religious teachers for these people, and, as a matter of fact, no other agency 92 NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS provides such men of character and power as does that which seeks to save in the name of the Master." These testimonies of long-time experience on the part of those who have proven by their lives among the Indians the value of their knowledge may stand for the approval of our missionary endeavors among the " First Americans." If the story has not been striking, the history has never- theless been great. 93 V THE HOME DEPARTMENT WEST AND SOUTH Missions in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wiscon- sin, Minnesota, and Iowa. — In Kentucky under Rev. John G. Fee. — The irrepressible conflict. — Violence. — First plea for a college at Berea, Kentucky, in 1857. — Rev. John A. R. Rogers, the first Principal in 1859. — Mob expulsion of all missionaries of the Association from Kentucky and North Carolina. — Reopening of Berea school after the war in 1865 under Professor Rogers. — The first " college " class in 1869. V THE HOME DEPARTMENT WEST AND SOUTH THE " Home Department " was organized to embrace two distinct fields, the West and the South. Those engaged in the Western field were located in Ohio and in the states west of it, — Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. The work in these states was conducted with special purpose to bear decided testimony against slavery and the sin of caste. The missions in slave states had the distinc- tion of beginning the first decided efforts to or- ganize churches and schools in the South on an avowedly antislavery basis. The pioneer in this movement was Rev. John G. Fee, of Kentucky, the son of a slaveholder, disinherited by his father on account of his antislavery principles. He, then in the vigor of young manhood, of great faith, and, as it proved, of great courage, collected a church of non-slaveholders, and ap- 7 9 7 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION plied to The American Missionary Association for a commission. Warmly welcomed, his com- mission was dated October 10, 1848. In his first most optimistic letter to The American Mission- ary, three months later, he writes from Ken- tucky, " My most sanguine expectations three years since did not anticipate such freedom of speech as we now have, nor did I expect to see such progress among the people in antislavery sentiment." The next year he adds, " Our con- gregations are regularly increasing in size and interest. The general impression through the community now is that an antislavery church can exist and prosper in a slave state. We have peace and can circulate antislavery documents with great readiness." In 1854 his letters show that he has lost noth- ing of his convictions, nor of his determination to express them. " Since my last report, we have organized one more church. A whole gospel can be preached in the South, and churches having no fellowship with slavery are organized and have fair prospects of success. Within the life- time of some now living, we must see from six to twelve millions of bondmen with responsibili- ties and influences of freedom. Twenty or thirty years from this time, what will hold these slaves in bondage? No power on earth will do it, as 98 THE HOME DEPARTMENT I believe. Redemption to the poor slave will come. But how shall it come? Shall it be by moral means? If freedom shall not come by moral means, then will it be by physical, by war and carnage? " The young man was preaching and praying that it might not be " by war and carnage," but within six years from this date, " redemption to the poor slave " had come, and, alas, by dreadful war and carnage. It could not possibly be, in the exciting events now hastening on the " irrepressible conflict," that sentiments like these should go unchallenged. Slavery, ever vigilant, saw the danger. The first personal indication of it to Mr. Fee came soon. He may relate the experience in his own words: Preparations had been made for a discussion with a young lawyer. He had actually entered upon it and made his opening speech at one of my previous ap- pointments. I went at the time appointed expecting a pleasant debate. I found the accustomed good and attractive audience absent, and a lawless band of wicked, profane men — about forty — in their stead. They presented resolutions accusing me of teaching immoral doctrines and of rebelling against law, and insisted that I desist, adding, " This is peremptory." I demanded to be brought before the law tribunals, if I had violated law. If I was teaching error, I asked some lawyer, doctor, or preacher, or any half dozen 99 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION of them, to appear before the people and show it, and let me have the chance of reply. They replied, " We want no discussion," and demanded that I should prom- ise not to preach any more there, and that I should leave the house, threatening violence if I did not. I refused, saying I should do no one thing that had the appearance of retreating or of surrendering a right. They swore I should, and took me by force, put me on my horse, and then with boards and sticks forced my horse along, pouring upon me vile abuse and constant threats of violence. I regretted it because of the effect upon the minds of many friends who were just beginning to lend a favorable ear, yet to me it has been a blessing. It has driven me nearer to God, my strength cast down but not destroyed. It was two years after this that Mr. Fee made his first plea for a college in Berea. It would seem a strange time to think of founding a col- lege, but his triumphant faith writes in 1857, after the reign of terror had begun, Free churches and free schools can be sustained. We want teachers, not merely antislavery teachers, but Christian teachers, who shall labor to redeem their pupils from all sin. We need a college here which shall be to Kentucky what Oberlin is to Ohio, an antislavery, anti-caste, anti-tobacco, anti-sectarian school, — a school under Christian influence ; a school that will furnish the best possible facilities for those of small means who have energy of character that will lead them to work their 100 THE HOME DEPARTMENT way through this world. Is it practical? It is. I know places where improved lands can be bought for ten or twelve dollars per acre. Three or four hundred acres would secure a village, a home for a colony. Faith, persevering trust in God, will overcome all diffi- culties. The place for the college is here in the interior of Kentucky. Thus Berea College began its history in the brain of John G. Fee while he was a missionary of The American Missionary Association. The idea soon became a fact, and Rev. John A. R. Rogers, likewise commissioned by the Association, was associated with Mr. Fee from the first. Born in Cornwall, Connecticut, and from Mayflozver ancestry, Mr. Rogers was prepared for Yale Col- lege, but his father having moved to the West, he entered Oberlin College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1850, and from the Theological Seminary in 1854. In 1858 he went to Berea, and in 1859 the school was opened with Rogers as its head. Previous to the opening the question arose, " Should colored children be ad- mitted into the schoolroom with white chil- dren?" The discussion was lively and opinions were divided. Two sets of directors were put in nomination, and Mr. Fee writes to the As- sociation, " The directors for the anti-caste school were elected by a majority of more than two to IQI AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION one, this, too, at an unusually large meeting of the voters of the district." No doubt this result was in part due to the steadfast opposition to caste on the part of the incoming principal, for Mr. Fee writes, " Brother Rogers, who has the care of the school, announced his purpose not to enter it unless it should be open to all." Immediately Mr. Fee went North to interest those who would listen to him in behalf of this new endeavor. It was in the days when the Association and all identified with it were looked upon with distrust as disturbers of the peace of the churches, and though Mr. Fee found few friends among the wealthy, he secured sufficient aid to encourage him to go forward. Had he received only rebuffs, and they were many, there would have been to him no discouragement. The meaning of the word was beyond his comprehen- sion. He never turned to it in his dictionary. The school had begun when Mr. Fee faced another riiob. While he was preaching thirty or forty armed men demanded that he should cease and promise to be silent in the future. " It is not impossible," he replied, " that some of you may yet want me to come and pray with you, and I should hate to be under a pledge not to do it." He could not " make a pledge that might conflict with future duty." Upon this they com- 102 J. A. R. Rogers, D.D. THE HOME DEPARTMENT pelled him to remove part of his clothing before plying their whips upon him. He knelt to re- ceive the blows, but for some unaccountable reason they desisted without striking a blow. The next year brought the expulsion of all the missions of the Association from Ken- tucky and North Carolina. The onset began at Berea, while Mr. Fee was in the North solicit- ing funds for the school, when a committee of sixty-two persons appointed at a public meeting held at Richmond, the county-seat, came to Berea and warned the principal men to leave the place within ten days. Upon this they appealed for protection to the governor of Kentucky. He assured them that he could not give it, and thus thirty-six persons were expelled from the state. After the war in 1865 ^ e school was re- opened and again under Professor Rogers with a large attendance. Immediately the question of caste presented itself for reconsideration. Three colored pupils applied for admission and were accepted, — the first time that colored students in the South had been admitted to a school with the whites. Most of the white students left, but later on many returned. In 1869 the first college class in the institu- tion sustained by the Association was started, consisting of five students, all from Kentucky. 103 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION At this time Dr. Rogers declined to accept the presidency, but remained as a professor of Greek until 1878. He died in 1906 at the age of seventy- eight years. Both he and Mr. Fee — heroic souls — had lived to richly inherit the promises of great faith and great patience. For many years Berea College received appropriations from the Association. 104 VI "THE MORNING COMETH, AND ALSO THE NIGHT " Dark days. — Distrust and prejudice. — The spirit of the Association. — Persistent purpose. — The Fugitive Slave Law. — Commerce and conservatism. — The sur- render of Thomas Sims in Boston in 1850. — Excitement and " Indignation Meeting " in Tremont Temple. — The American Missionary Association honored by the speakers. — Attention called to its stand for principle. — Gaining friends. — Light breaking. — The influence of the great Avery legacy. — The announcement of war and a new field of mission labor. VI "THE MORNING COMETH, AND ALSO THE NIGHT" THROUGH many discouragements and dark days the Association held on to its work. It had not secured general pub- lic consideration, and only limited recognition from churches. Not many wise and not many mighty were willing to risk themselves and their popularity against the prejudice and dis- trust which this agitating "disturber of the peace of the churches " carried with itself. Its annual meetings were conspicuous for the absence of the familiar and influential names which were wont to figure on the platforms of other benevolent societies. Strong and leading men, who at heart disapproved of the silence of other societies, were nevertheless not ready to identify themselves with this. Its friends, how- ever rich they might have been in faith, were not among the wealthy, and its yearly income had hardly reached $50,000. At the same time, while the pages of The American Missionary of these days tell the 107 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION story of struggle, they also show that during these trying years, when friends were few and sympathy was small, the Association never bated a jot of heart or hope. While there was a persistent antagonism on its part to the atti- tude of such societies as maintained any com- plicity with slavery, its pages show no hardness or bitterness. The patient persistence of an unconquerable purpose, " speaking the truth in love," is discernible in all its records, and is in striking contrast to the utterances and methods of those who thought that denunciation strength- ened principle and that bitterness attested sin- cerity. The spirit of that day is thus indicated : We regret the necessity of devoting any portion of our columns to a discussion of the relations of other Missionary Boards to slavery. It would be much more congenial to our feelings to address ourselves to the work of giving the gospel to the destitute portions of our own and other lands without this hindrance. It is not that we undervalue the good which other mis- sionary societies have accomplished, or would curtail their power to increase their beneficial effects, that we allude to what they have done, or neglected to do, on this subject. Painful as it may be, we are constrained in fidelity to our principles, and by regard for the welfare of the oppressed, to give a decided testimony, even though in so doing we hazard the loss of the good opinion of some whom we love but who do not 108 "THE MORNING COMETH" think as we do. Were the religious papers of the country open to our communications, we might prefer those channels ; but as they are not — with scarce an exception — we must make use of the best instrumen- tality within our reach. Our object has been to en- force correct principles and to secure correct action, with the hope ultimately of benefiting all organiza- tions and injuring none. We hope we may be guided by the spirit of faithfulness and love. One who reads the records of those early days will certainly not fail to recognize " the spirit of faithfulness " written large. The Association kept on expressing its con- tinued confidence in the correctness of its dis- tinctive principles. It felt called on to live and work because it believed that these principles did not find adequate exemplification in any existing missionary organization. To aflord relief to the consciences of such as were aggrieved by the policy of silence upon the doctrine that man could hold property in the body and spirit of his fellow men, to rectify public opinion, and especially Christian public opinion, was God's call to the society; it was far from being popular. At its fourth annual meeting in 1850, among its " resolutions " reads the following : — Resolved, that we believe the Christianity of the nation is about to be tested, in view of the late act 109 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION of Congress for recovery of fugitive slaves, which appears equally at variance with the principles of the Association, the Constitution of the country, and the law of God, and that as Christians we do solemnly covenant with each other and our colored brethren that we cannot obey it, nor any law that contravenes the higher law of our Maker, whatever persecution or penalty we may be called to suffer. This reads tamely enough now, but it was suf- ficiently wild in 1850. No one in all the land is now disturbed by the constitution of the Associa- tion, but if a minister had quoted it at this time with approval, most of his congregation would have needed the " long prayer " to calm their minds; for it meant disturbance. On the side of the oppressor were numbers and power. Men are still living who remember the Castle Garden Meeting called by the New York merchants for the avowed purpose of showing to the slave- holders of the South that they had no sympathy with such an utterance as this society put forth. At that meeting the most brilliant young lawyer in New York, the son of a New England minis- ter, was one of the principal defenders of the infamous fugitive slave law, and " prostituted his keen intellect to the task of cheering on the bloodhounds that were chasing human beings, whose only crime was that they fled from slav- 110 "THE MORNING COMETH" ery." The religious papers, the theological semi- naries, and the great majority of the churches practically said, Amen. If the Fugitive Slave Law was felt to be a calamity, it was one which could not be escaped. The great Daniel Webster hesitated before it, and tottered to his fall. Other Northern statesmen surrendered their con- sciences on the ground that the Fugitive Act was " warranted by the Constitution." Thus, while commerce and conservatism consented that slave- hunters might traverse the free states to search for fugitives, and while Boston was sending back handcuffed captives without trial into slavery, the Association was lifting up its voice as well as it could in behalf of righteousness. " Little can be hoped," it continues in its missionary appeals, " from politicians until the Christian churches can be brought to unite prayer and effort for its overthrow." To one who personally witnessed the surrender of Thomas Sims in Boston in the year 1850, we are indebted for a look upon the scene : — They marched him down to the end of Long Wharf, and fastened him to a stanchion in the foul-smelling hold of the big Acorn — owned by the same Boston merchant who had once before in a similar way dis- graced the name. A tug hauled the Acorn out into the harbor; her sails were raised, and like a guilty in AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION specter she stole away in the gray of the morning, leaving humiliated and disgraced the city of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere. When the crowd retired from witnessing the sailing of the Acorn, Court Square was again filled with angry citi- zens. It was Wendell Phillips who suggested an ad- journment to Tremont Temple that evening. The Temple was packed with intellectual, thoughtful men. If Boston had been carried away by excitement in the morning, she had come to her senses before even- ing. The speeches were neither excited nor extreme. They were rather conservative and temperate, with a somber cast which gave expression to the morti- fication and shame and dishonor which seemed to fill every heart. I cannot remember which of the speakers first struck the note to which so many hearts re- sponded : " When God is with us, why do we forget him in this war with slavery?" and from that mo- ment the war-cry was that of old crusaders, " God with us ! God with us ! " The name of The American Missionary Association ever since that evening has been in my memory inseparably connected with that meeting. Whether I then first heard its name, or whether it was commended as a model for uniting men in opposition to slavery upon Christian as well as moral grounds, I cannot now recall, but from that night opposition to slavery in the free states took on a new form. Men saw that slavery had thrown off all disguises, denied its solemn agreements, and en- tered upon a campaign of aggression that had no bounds, which could not be successfully resisted unless there should be union and harmony of action among 112 "THE MORNING COMETH " all the societies in the free states laboring for the spread of the gospel and the repression of every form of crime. This meeting in Tremont Temple adjourned to meet in convention five days later. This convention, at which Horace Mann presided, was unquestionably one of the most important ever held in New England. The American Missionary Association was again highly commended by the speakers and brought conspicuously into public notice as the best agency for the protec- tion of the colored race. And from that time the growth of the Association had a remarkable impulse. Its name became familiar. It was seen by many for the first time to be a practical agency for the protec- tion and improvement of the colored race and a model for effective opposition to the increasing aggression of the slave power; and it will ever remain a truth of history that opposition to slavery made no substan- tial progress until it came upon the ground of the As- sociation, to enlist the powerful agencies of the pulpit and the church, and that the first attempt to raise this opposition to that high level was the organization and work of The American Missionary Association. As God's purpose ripened, the Association gained friends. The current had slightly changed, and it is easier to steer with the current. Secretary Whipple writes that he is " laboring in the midst of obloquy," but certainly this was both weaker and reduced in quantity as the strange ways of God were justifying the faith of those in whom his gracious love and power had been working 8 113 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION for the redemption of the oppressed and for the purity of his churches. At this time the Annual Report deplores the instances " where men in high position in the church have apologized for the Fugitive Slave Law " and advocated its claims to obedience. Showing how compacts de- signed to secure freedom had been swept away, how free territory had been violently possessed by the slave power, how the purity of the ballot- box had been destroyed, and how men professing godliness had been prominent in these acts, it exclaims, " Surely the time is near at hand when the church will clearly see that the moral evils of slavery cannot be abated while those who are involved in its support are received in good stand- ing in the Christian churches and have a voice in the control of benevolent societies. Providen- tial causes at work in this land make more evi- dent to all the necessity of our principles in the work of Christian missions and philanthropy." Nevertheless, though the night had been long and dark, the day had begun to break. " Faith walks in night, yet is not of the night ; And Hope, her fellow, looks into the east, Where marking the long cloud-bars all of gold, It says, ere day is up, ' Behold the sun ! ' " It is not necessary to follow in detail the sev- eral steps by which the slave power had so far 114 "THE MORNING COMETH" maintained and now sought to increase its as- cendency in the Union. For a century it had been aggression on the one side and servile ac- quiescence on the other. The addition of slave states, successful slave legislation, the Missouri Compromise, the annexation of Texas, and, at last, the Fugitive Slave Law, with the Kansas- Nebraska bill, and the Dred Scott decision were parts of one purpose to make slavery national. The cup of Northern acquiescence to protect and perpetuate the crime against humanity was nearly full. The testimonies for the principles of the As- sociation came now from new adherents. Albert Barnes, in 1857, wrote: — There never has been a time when the system of slav- ery has been so bold, exacting, arrogant, and danger- ous to liberty as at present, when so much could be done in favor of the rights of man by plain utterance of sentiment ; when so much guilt would be incurred by silence. It cannot be right that any one who holds the system to be evil . . . should so act that it shall be impossible to understand his opinion in relation to it ; so act that his conduct could be appealed to as imply- ing an apology for slavery. At this period a great legacy, exceptional in amount for those days, came to the Association which not only brought it new courage, but em- phasis also to its work. The Rev. Charles Avery 115 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION of Pittsburg, a local preacher in the Protestant Methodist Church, left somewhat more than $100,000 as " a perpetual fund for disseminat- ing the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the blessings of Christian civilization among the benighted black and colored races inhabiting the continent of Africa, to be intrusted, managed, and applied under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association for the uses afore- said and for no other, but leaving to the discre- tion of the Association the time and manner of its application." Here was confidence. What it meant to the missionary society with the general distrust that had been its lot, can only be imag- ined. Walking by faith was well, but the sight of a hundred thousand dollars in its treasury strengthened faith immensely. The time soon came when faith received its justifications. The providences of God, working together in natural combination and dependency, brought recognition and sympathy with the posi- tions which the Association had maintained, and when the slave power without disguise demanded that slavery should be national, with the alter- native of war, the free country was ready with the reply : " We cannot consent to extend and perpetuate slavery. We cannot permit the sun- dering of the nation." 116 "THE MORNING COMETH " Now, it was not only evident that God had been educating his people in the churches to a larger and better comprehension of their duty to the oppressed, so that when his clock of time struck the hour for their decision they were ready for the question, but it was also manifest how in the experience of its years the Association had been unconsciously prepared to enter upon a serv- ice, the magnitude and opportunity of which would have staggered its faith, had not its pre- vious history made it ready to confront the new problem full of promise and the new work full of grandeur. When the voice from heaven came, " Behold, I have set before thee an open door," what could not have been done in the toils of centuries now became possible, and the Associa- tion, disciplined, tried, experienced, and ready, entered into its new inheritance of service. The first suggestion of this was almost immediately after President Lincoln had issued his proclama- tion calling for troops upon the bombardment of Fort Sumter. It read : — The whole country is in great excitement. War has begun. The President of the United States has issued his proclamation calling for troops, and multitudinous hosts are responding to the call. When the war ceases the slave states will, we believe, present one of the grandest fields for missionary labor the world ever 117 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION furnished. Should the prayers of the friends of free- dom be speedily answered in the emancipation of the slaves, a field of usefulness may be opened before us that will call for renewed exertion on a greatly in- creased scale compared with which our past efforts have been preparatory work. And before five months had elapsed after the declaration of war, the Association announced: " Providence has, in a singularly marked manner, opened to the Association special fields among the African race in Western Africa, in Jamaica, in Kentucky, and in North Carolina, and at the present time a new field of missionary labor in Virginia among our colored people, who are under the protection of our military force there." 118 VII SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES Rev. L. C. Lockwood at Fortress Monroe in 1861. — The Association's first school. — Mrs. Mary Peake. — Schools at Norfolk, Newport News, and other localities. — The " Butler School." — General Armstrong appointed by the Association. — Property purchased by the Asso- ciation for Hampton Institute. — Hampton begun and carried on by the Association under General Armstrong. — Opening schools in the track of the Union armies. — The North, East, and West coming over to the position of the Association. — William Jackson, its first President. — Lawrence Brainard, David Thurston. — Dr. E. N. Kirk of Boston elected President in 1865. — His ringing words for the Association. — The National Council of Congre- gational churches acknowledge and approve the Asso- ciation and ask the churches for $250,000 for the com- ing year. — Collecting agencies organized. — Rev. W. W. Patton, d.d., and Rev. J. C. Holbrook, d.d., sent to Great Britain. — Rev. C. L. Woodworth in Boston, Rev. E. P. Smith in Cincinnati, and Rev. J. R. Shipherd in Chicago. — The Freedmen's Bureau and General O. O. Howard. — Arthur Tappan. — Enlargement of the work. — Religious interests of the Freedmen. — The first chapel built at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1866. — Avery Institute, Storrs' School in Atlanta, Georgia, and Lewis Normal, now Bal- lard, in Macon, Georgia, the same year. VII SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES IN September, 1861, Rev. L. C. Lockwood, commissioned by the Association, was at Fortress Monroe, and from that place writes, " I ask especial interest in your prayers that I may be endowed with wisdom and grace for these peculiar and momentous responsibili- ties." He makes a requisition for " 1,500 Sun- day-school primers with pictures attached." " Parents and children are delighted with the idea of learning to read." "There are 1,800 contrabands here ; yesterday I opened a Sabbath- school in Ex-President Tyler's house. Little did he think it would ever be used for such a pur- pose. All felt that it was the beginning of better days for them and for their children." It is here that we have our introduction to Mrs. Mary Peake, who has the distinction of being the first teacher of the first day-school for the freedmen in America. A woman identified with the colored race, though herself nearly white, began what was in due process of time 121 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION to become and to be known the world over as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Mr. Lockwood writes : " A day-school was com- menced last Tuesday, Sept. 17th, with about twenty pupils, and since in one week increased to forty or fifty. It was suggested by the chil- dren themselves. Mrs. Peake is a free woman, quite light colored, with qualifications for the post. She is devotedly pious and highly re- spected among her own people in the commu- nity. She will make a good permanent teacher worthy of compensation. Mrs. Peake had made the most of her chance for education in the Dis- trict of Columbia before the schools there were closed to her race, and in slavery times, and at great personal risk, had taught, not only her hus- band, but scores of negroes who had come to their cabin by night to learn to read." To her God allotted the privilege of opening the first reading and writing school among this peculiar people, and singular it was that she should have been identified with both the white and the colored races. Mrs. Peake was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1823. Her maiden name was Mary Smith Kelsey. Her mother was a free colored woman, very light, and her father a white man, an Englishman of education and cul- ture. She was educated about as a white girl 122 SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES of good family would have been until she was sixteen years of age, when she united with the First Baptist Church in Norfolk. In 185 1 she was married to Thomas Peake, formerly a slave, but afterwards a free man, light colored, intel- ligent, pious, and in every respect a worthy husband. When Mr. Lockwood secured from the govern- ment a cottage for a schoolroom with a family room above, Mrs. Peake without pledge of pay gave what remained of a life that was ebbing away to fifty children every morning and to a large class of adults every afternoon. Early in the year of 1862 Mrs. Peake's health began to decline, and when she learned that she must die, she sent her love to the Executive Com- mittee of the Association in New York and to all her friends of the Mission, saying that she was "assured that their cause would triumph; that the Association was sowing seed which would spring up and become a great tree for the shelter of a down-trodden people." What would Mrs. Peake have said could she have seen the evolution from her first teaching to the pres- ent greatness of Hampton Institute? I quote from Miss Helen Ludlow : " From the room above the school, on Saturday, February 22, 1862, as the ' All 's well ' of the midnight watch 123 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION sounded through the window of the cottage from the war-ships in the Roads, her brave soul crossed the bar. Two more weeks, and the early gath- ering Sunday-school of the ' Brown Cottage ' trooped after Mr. Lockwood to the shore's edge to watch with hundreds of praying refugees the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac." Other teachers were soon sent down by the Association and Mrs. Peake's pioneer school be- came the nucleus of a school which soon num- bered over three hundred pupils, to hold which the walls of the burned court-house were roofed and repaired by the Association and dedicated to their new use in October, 1862. When the supreme event of the war came on January 1, 1863, confirming the freedom of those who were under the protection of our armies and proclaiming the emancipation of all who were in slavery, the eager cry for education was heard everywhere throughout the South. The Association was not slow in responding. In ad- dition to Hampton, schools * were opened at Nor- folk and Newport News, Portsmouth, Suffolk 1 The second school in the South opened under Northern teachers for colored people was at Hilton Head early in the year 1862. A party of teachers sent from Boston under the direction of Edward L. Pierce, three of whom were graduates of Yale, opened schools on the Sea Islands, several of which continue until now. Prominent among these pioneer teachers was Rev. W. E. Park, n. d., then of Andover, Massachusetts, who was stationed at St. Helena Island. I24 SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES and Yorktown, Virginia; in Beaufort, Hilton Head, St. Helena, Port Royal, South Carolina, and at Washington, following the army closely. The year closed with eighty-three teachers and missionaries. At Hampton, General Butler or- dered the construction of a larger schoolhouse, which was turned over to the Association in 1865 by General O. O. Howard, who was then commis- sioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Hamp- ton court-house, which had been used as a schoolhouse, was given back to the town by the United States government. The little school of the Association, now grown to a classified body of over six hundred pupils, under the super- intendence of Rev. Charles P. Day, with a corps of missionary teachers, was again in the loca- tion where it began. It was still called the "Butler School." On the 1 2th of March, 1866, Brigadier-General S. C. Armstrong, late Colonel of the Eighth United States Colored Troops, arrived at Hamp- ton to take charge as Freedmen's Bureau Super- intendent of ten counties in tide-water, Virginia, with headquarters there. The interests of the " Butler School " and other freedmen's schools in his extensive district were part of his varied charge. His reports bearing frequent testimony to The American Missionary Association as the 125 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION greatest financial power interested in negro edu- cation, suggested that Hampton was the spot for a permanent and great educational work, and rec- ommended that a valuable estate called " Little Scotland," comprising one hundred and fifty-nine acres fronting on Hampton River and then in the market, be purchased. The Association, upon consideration, decided to do this, and to found an institution which should combine a practical schoolroom education with mental and moral uplift of industrial training and self-help. The Association was the more ready to meet this suggestion of General Armstrong, since the theory was not a new one to the committee. The Rev. Josiah Brewer had championed these fea- tures of missionary endeavor both for the mis- sions in Africa and in Jamaica, and they had been adopted and carried out on a small scale in both places with such advantage as the local direction in these missions made possible. The Association had also at that time arranged for an agricultural department at Talladega. As the one whom the Executive Committee had consid- ered for principal declined, they realized at once that General Armstrong was a born master, and decided that if he could be secured to direct the new enterprise, there would be no question as to its successful administration. 126 General S. C. Armstrong at thk Age of Thirty-three SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES " Not expecting to have charge but only to help, I was surprised one day," wrote Armstrong in his biography, " to receive a letter from Secre- tary Smith of The American Missionary Associa- tion, stating that the man selected for the place had declined, and asking if I would take it. I wrote ' Yes.' Till then my future had been blind ; it had been made clear that there was a work to be done for the ex-slave and where and how to do it." While the matter of the full purchase money for " Little Scotland " was " hanging in the air," the executor of the Avery estate, in which was a legacy of $250,000 for negro education from the man who had already made large contribu- tions to The American Missionary Association, " at the suggestion of the Association paid a visit to Hampton." He was impressed with the adapt- ability of the location to institutional purposes, and shortly after gave to The American Mission- ary Association the $10,000 which were still needed for the purchase. The property was added to the $9,000 already in hand. This was the material beginning of Hampton. With Gen- eral Armstrong as principal, the school began its phenomenally successful life. While these events were transpiring a flatter- ing offer was made to General Armstrong to 127 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION take charge of Howard University at Washing- ton. In his autobiography he writes : " I refused for two reasons. First, I was in honor bound to The American Missionary Association that had so warmly supported me here and carried out all my plans. Secondly, I consider my own enter- prise here has better possibilities (is more central with reference to freedmen and has important advantages)." Academic Hall was erected in 1870, and the same year the young institution was incorporated as " Hampton Normal and Agricultural Insti- tute." In view of General Armstrong's mas- terful activity and administrative gifts, the Association, in February, 1872, made over the title to the property to a board of trustees, of which Secretary George Whipple was the presi- dent. The story of Hampton under the direction of General Armstrong does not need to be told here. It has interwoven its history with that of the nation. The Association is happy and grate- ful in the splendid development and far-reaching and blessed influence of its first child — the first school planted by the North for the education of the children of slavery. Alert to opportunity, every advance of the army meant a corresponding one for the Asso- ciation. The year 1864 was marked by the elec- 128 Hon. William Jackson SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES tion of Rev. M. E. Strieby as corresponding secretary with Dr. Whipple, the addition of schools at Memphis, Tennessee; New Orleans, and Port Hudson, Louisiana; Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi; Little Rock and Helena, Arkansas. The track of the Union armies can thus be traced by that of the close-following teachers and missionaries, many of whom were the bravest of brave young women. The num- ber of these had increased to two hundred and fifty. The thing which was anathema but a score of years ago had now become the model of true patriotism. The contested convictions of 1846 were the gospel of 1864. The people who in the face of opposition had kept on preaching right- eousness saw the entire North and East and West coming to its side. The men of 1846 were no longer misguided reformers ; they were prophets. One of these, who died in 1855, was the first president of the Association for eight years. William Jackson was born at Newton, Mas- sachusetts, in 1783. He engaged in business in Boston at an early age, was prominent as a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and was the principal agent in constructing the Provi- dence and Worcester Railroad. Subsequently, while a member of Congress, he became familiar with the movements of the slave power, and as 9 129 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION a consequence was one of its most determined opponents. Against the remonstrances of his political friends in the Whig party, with whom he had always acted, amidst much obloquy, he united with the Liberty party and was their first candidate for governor of Massachusetts. Those who disliked his adherence to his principles were constrained to acknowledge his sincerity, honesty, and consistency. The strength of all his excel- lences was in his decided and uniform Christian character. When in Congress, he belonged to the small band of members that met regularly for devotional exercises. During his last illness he said : " I never felt so fully the value and importance of antislavery labors as I do now. Nothing gives me so sweet a satisfaction in look- ing back as my labors in the antislavery cause. I am thankful that I did not follow the fashion in that matter." William Jackson was followed in the presi- dency of the Association by Hon. Lawrence Brainard of Vermont. Rev. David Thurston of Maine was the third president. These all serving with a faith that never faltered and with a fidel- ity which only a great faith could insure, awaited the justifications of God. In the nineteenth Annual Report in 1865 we find the Association rejoicing in the presidency 130 SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES of Rev. E. N. Kirk, d.d., of Boston. Those who had preceded him had not found the position one of unquestioned honor. They could often say with the apostle, " As it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." The bombardment of Fort Sumter had been heard by many who had never listened to the speakers from the Association's platform, and when the mission schools were organized in the footsteps of our soldiers, the conversions to the principles and work of the Association were frequent and happy. But when in 1865 Dr. Kirk was elected president of the Association, it was on his part no recent conversion. In the published story of his life we read that when he was seventeen and a half years of age, in his senior year at Princeton Col- lege, — when Wendell Phillips was a child of nine years, and full twenty-one years before Joshua Giddings made his first speech upon slavery, and twenty-six years before the Asso- ciation was born, — Edward Norris Kirk took the position from which he never swerved. The nation at this time was attent upon the "Missouri Compromise." At Princeton College it required courage for a student to stand forth and say of slavery : " What an employment is this for a free-born American who professes to esteem liberty more than life itself! Let 131 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION me call on every American to bring the case home to himself. Think how ineffably distress- ing their situation is: sold like beasts and sub- jected to the lash of the cruel, mercenary master wherever it suits his caprice. Bring this home; I repeat it. Suppose you were thus treated, I ask what would your feelings be and what would be your actions ? If instant despair did not cease, would you not risk even your life to escape? Who, then, will dispute whether slavery shall be checked or extended, that is, whether Missouri shall or shall not be admitted to the rights of a state without the restrictions of slavery?" More than two-score years after this youth- ful utterance was .iade the eminent pastor of Mount Vernon Church in Boston did not fear to speak, but he was cautious. Nine-tenths of the Congregational ministers were comparatively silent, hoping that the question might be set- tled by some compromise or by some peaceable change which should eventuate in the destruc- tion of slavery. When, however, in 1854, it was moved in Congress to repeal the Missouri Compromise and decree slavery to Kansas and Nebraska, Dr. Kirk could no longer hope against hope that the South would come to a better mind. Thoroughly antislavery before, he now was out- spoken. His sermons and addresses ring with 132 Hon. Lawrence Lkainakd SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES calls to the people in behalf of the doctrines of liberty and brotherhood, and the city of Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips had no more earn- est champion of the principles for which The American Missionary Association was standing than Dr. Kirk. It was fitting then, after ten years of noble testimony on his part, during which slavery had been destroyed, that he should honor the representative position of president of the Association with its history of struggle for nineteen years. He closed his discourse — the annual sermon — by saying : " We are to do our part in forming a correct public sentiment. This is the sovereign in this country before whom noth- ing can stand. Assert the manhood of the negro ; make it appear horrible to defraud him, as it is to defraud a white man of his rights. Insist that every human being on this part of God's earth shall stand on a perfect level with every other man before the law." Could Dr. Kirk have left a better legacy of counsel for the As- sociation in these last days? It was during this year that the Congrega- tional National Council which met in Boston in June recommended the Association to the Con- gregational churches, and asked that $250,000 for the year might be contributed to it. As yet the Association was without adequate agen- ts AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION cies for collecting the funds, and the first step was taken to perfect its organization for this purpose. Rev. J. C. Holbrook, d.d., and Rev. W. W. Patton, d.d., were invited to rep- resent the Association in England and Scot- land. Since over $100,000 had been contributed and used in the British island of Jamaica by the Association for the missionary work there among the blacks, it was felt that now our Christian friends in Great Britain would cor- dially respond to opportunities and demands which had come through the emancipation of slaves here. Three district secretaries were also appointed: Rev. C. L. Woodworth, to be located in Boston, Rev. E. P. Smith in Cincinnati, and Rev. J. R. Shipherd in Chicago. The deputation to Great Britain was successful, and, with the other agencies, the aggregate cash collections for the year lacked but ten per cent of the $250,000 recommended by the National Council. Most efficient aid and encouragement were rendered by Major General O. O. Howard, the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. This conscientious Chris- tian officer, in his devotion to the higher interests of the freedmen, in his impartial attention to all who were laboring for their good, in his able administration of the Bureau with its untried i34 Edward N. Kirk, D.U. SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES difficulties and perplexities, well deserved the thanks of the whole country and the gratitude of the emancipated people. It is well to remember, as we pass, those who pointed the way to this liberty which was now everywhere accepted. Perhaps the most promi- nent was Arthur Tappan. It was on the Lord's Day, July 23 of this year, 1865, that this great Christian philanthropist, the early tried and faith- ful advocate of the freedom of the slave, in his eightieth year ceased from his earthly life. He more than any other had made the Mendi Mis- sion possible. Doubtless no one person was more responsible than he for the organization of the Association in 1846. His influence likewise was incalculable in preventing the antislavery people at that period from turning away from the churches when the churches were slow in in- dorsing their principles. Arthur Tappan was a charter member of the Association, one of its vice-presidents, and al- ways, from 1846 to the time of his death, an influential member of the executive committee. His life was interwoven with the first twenty years of the Association's history. Born in 1783 in Northampton, Massachusetts, he had conse- crated himself at the age of thirty years, all he was and all he had, all he might become i35 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION and secure, in devotion to Christ and through him to his fellow men. From this time there seemed to be no limit to his endeavors to prove his discipleship. Entering into business in Portland, Maine, and subsequently in Montreal until 1817, when he established himself as a silk merchant in New York, he had already- evinced his energy and large powers. For twenty years onward his successful career made him one of the most prosperous of the distin- guished merchants of the city. He had the con- fidence of all in his unbending integrity, while his business extended throughout the whole coun- try. His benevolences were wide-spread and large in Christian causes. In the great com- mercial crisis of 1857 he suffered immense losses, but he still retained his ability to contribute gen- erously to the Association and all other benevo- lences, though on a diminished scale during his protracted life. It was he who in the early struggles of Oberlin College sent to them Presi- dent Finney, who at his death wrote, " Although Arthur Tappan failed to do for Oberlin all that he intended, yet his promise was the condition of the existence of Oberlin as it has been." His wise counsels, his energetic determination and generous contributions made him the strongest and most influential friend of the Association 136 SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES during all of its struggling and often stirring history of twenty years. For thirty years he had been a shining mark for every weapon of insult and abuse that op- pression could wield. " Thief," " hypocrite," " incendiary," " fanatic " were in the familiar vocabulary with which he was wont to be pelted. His only retort was the constant bestowment of thousands from his wealth in evidence of heroic fidelity to his convictions of duty. He outlived the largeness of his material fortune, but he also outlived the narrow and hateful criticisms which these convictions brought to him. More; he had outlived the iniquity of slavery which he had so keenly realized. He had held out against popu- lar sentiments and the tyranny of commercial greed until the nation had come to see and feel the righteousness for which he had prayed and lived. He did not die until his eyes had seen the salvation of the Lord and he was ready to say, " Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." The executive committee of the Association placed upon their permanent records the deep " appreciation of his distinguished liberality and his earnest labors and sacrifices for the freedom of the slave and the welfare of the oppressed. His benevolence knew no distinction of race, clime, condition, or color, and we gratefully ex- i37 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION press our thanks to the Almighty God that he was permitted to witness with exultation the downfall of the accursed system against which he had so long striven." The Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, in a discourse preached a week after the death of Mr. Tappan, outlining his great life, said: "Of course, his name in every part of the country was associ- ated with all terms of opprobrium. The memo- rable anti-abolition riots in the city of New York raged with special fury against him. But no violence could move him from the cause he had deliberately taken in the fear of God. Year by year it became manifest that the churches and their ministry, whether right or wrong in their judgments, were not apostate from Christ, and that the people of the North, however they might have been misled, were not false to liberty. All this our venerable friend observed with growing thankfulness, and when the war was ended in the vindication of constitutional liberty and in the complete extinction of slavery,, his joy was full." With the memory of Arthur Tappan preserved, the Association will keep its rudder true in all seas. With the accession of funds, the work of the Association now greatly enlarged. Schools at Wilmington, North Carolina; Savannah, Geor- 138 Arthur Tappan SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES gia; and Jacksonville, Florida, were added. The 250 teachers and missionaries had become 320, and these in 1866 had increased to 353, the states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, and Texas having been added to those already entered. At the same time the religious advancement of the freedmen was going forward, though less ob- viously. It was clearly seen that in the real prog- ress of religion, anything reasonable, stable, and permanent must begin and keep pace with Chris- tian education. If emphasis appears to have been placed upon the schools, it was because they were the foundation for churches. Fidelity to the spiritual nature of these poor people was largely — almost entirely — dependent upon en- lightenment of the mind. But from the first the school was an embryo church. Every-day services and Sunday-schools found their home in the schoolhouse. In 1866 the first chapel built by the Associa- tion in the South for the special use of the col- ored people was opened at Memphis, Tennessee. It was burned with all the colored churches in Memphis in a riot against the race that same year. A lot also was secured for a church in Atlanta, Georgia. The first notice of the school that is now Avery i39 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Institute was given in the Charleston Daily Nezvs in May, 1866. It is interesting as a picture of the time, a single year after the close of the war: — We received an invitation to be present at the ex- amination of the colored school in the Normal build- ing on Thursday afternoon. The scene was novel : colored " exhibitors " in Charleston are still in their infancy. The school is supported by The American Missionary Association of New York. Rev. F. L. Cardozo, a native of this city, who finished his studies at the University of Glasgow, is the principal, as- sisted by a corps of twenty teachers, ten of whom are from the North and the remainder colored natives from Charleston. The school has about one thousand pupils with an average daily attendance of eight hun- dred. The studies comprise the entire range of ele- mentary branches from the English primer to the Latin grammar. The institution was opened in Oc- tober, 1865. One-fourth of the pupils were born free, and these comprise the more advanced classes. The school, therefore, must not be considered as giving a fair average of colored education in this city. As it is the design to make this a school for the education of teachers, the best material has been retained so far as practicable and the remainder sent to other schools. Thus in some of the classes scarcely a single pure black is seen. The greater number in the more ad- vanced classes are very fair, but all hues are repre- sented. All were very neat and well dressed, and bore themselves with great credit to themselves and to their teachers. 140 SCHOOLS FOLLOWING THE ARMIES A school in Atlanta, Georgia, afterwards named " Storrs School," and dedicated in 1867, and which continued till 1905, giving a good foundation for advanced education to thousands, and also one in Macon then named Lewis Normal but now called Ballard Normal, sent in their first reports this year. 141 VIII POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT Long looks forward. — Permanent policy adopted and reasons. — Theory and methods of education for an un- developed people. — Higher institutions needed to prepare teachers and preachers. — Fisk University founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1866. — The story of Fisk Uni- versity and its subsequent history. — General Clinton B. Fisk. — President Cravath. — Professor Bennett. — Spence and Chase. — Plans in education to include handicrafts and industries. VIII POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT AT first the Association opened temporary /""% schools in barracks and warerooms be- longing to the army and in such confis- cated buildings as could be secured. The teach- ing was very elementary and the work plain. The mission had meant simply attention to the immediate pressing duty. The work in hand claimed the entire attention. But when it be- came more complex, it was realized that the enthusiasm and missionary consecration which for short periods of service had been so ready and free, must become a permanent factor ; that it must have concentration for efficiency and careful supervision and direction for economy. Thorough organization and concentration became missionary wisdom. Not only were the relative fields to be considered, but the relative needs of the varied parts. There must be long looks for- ward, for it was evident that millions of people whose antecedents were barbarism and centuries of slavery could not be upraised to Christian civilization and privilege by ever so much mere i45 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION elementary education. It was missionary strat- egy to collect the scattered forces that were tem- porarily distributed in rural districts, reaching only obscure localities and hamlets as they had followed the armies. The question now had come before the Asso- ciation as to what should be the permanent policy — the principles not only, but the methods, of their new missionary endeavor. So far the Asso- ciation had made less account of the future than it did of the fact that God was leading on, and that the Association was assuredly following that leading. But now it was face to face with a long future. No transient purpose and no transient work would do. The salvation of an absolutely undeveloped race with a long heredity of igno- rance, superstition, and degradation meant gen- erations as to time and called for permanent institutions. This at once introduced the theory and methods of education and indicated what should be attempted. The prophetic men who were directing the Association believed that what experience had proved to be wise and efficient influences for Christianizing and civiliz- ing white people ought to be equally good for black people. Indeed, the evidence already be- fore them seemed to be sufficient to justify this judgment. The Association had gone far enough 146 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT to confirm the opinion that the black people could be enlarged in thought and mind by the same influences and methods of discipline which had proved their power in other peoples; this much against the opinions of the Southern people, who held for the most part to the essential incapacity of their former slaves for anything beyond ele- mentary improvement. At all events, said these men in the direction of the Association, we must work toward the possibilities. No race can be permanently dependent upon another race for its ultimate development. This negro race must be taught to save itself and how to do it; to work out its own future with its own teachers and edu- cators. Therefore, reliance must be placed on permanent institutions and permanent teachers for them, and for the steady and determined con- secration of those ready to take up the work with this high conception of it. Evidently it would not be within the power of this Association or any other to upraise the masses numbering millions by a sheer dead lift. It could not be wisdom to undertake this. Our work must be to save those who will go out and save others, and for this they must have wisdom and strength. The elementary work must be given to teachers of their own race as soon as they can be ready to take it. The com- mon schools, which at first sprang up in great i47 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION numbers, must give way to graded schools ; these graded schools must take on normal departments with teachers of experience and devotion who shall prepare their pupils for such instruction as they in turn may impart in smaller places. This theory at once made necessary higher institutions with the collegiate intention, which should receive exceptional pupils prepared at the secondary schools who were approved and encouraged by their teachers to seek exceptional education. Meanwhile, parochial schools must be continued in connection with the little churches of ignorant people, the teachers working in the churches as well as in the schools. For this plan of permanent efficiency it be- came necessary to provide the schools with " Teachers' Homes," as it was impossible other- wise for those who were willing to teach col- ored people to secure board and shelter. These were intended to be, not only homes for teachers, but " social settlements " also for those who needed to be taught how to live, — centers of Christian evangelism and missionary endeavor. From these should go out the influence of per- sonal character and example in home life. The emphasis of the service from first to last was to be on the word " missionary," and with the les- sons in schools it was to be religion all the week, 148 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT permeating and vitalizing character; a mighty social and civic movement as well as a positively Christian one. The fathers of forty years ago anticipated the criticisms of later years as to the wisdom of col- leges for the development of a backward race. So, they said, let it be granted that other lines of education are imperative; colleges also cer- tainly are needed, and we must set the standards for the education of the race now! Thorough training, large knowledge, and the best culture possible are needed to invigorate, direct, purify, and broaden life; needed for the wise adminis- tration of citizenship, the duties of which are as sure to come as the sun is to shine, though to-day or to-morrow may be cloudy; needed to over- come narrowness, one-sidedness, and incomplete- ness. They took their theories of education from their estimates of men. If what " is possible " was to be demonstrated, there must be institu- tions for those whose gifts, attainments, char- acter, and example should make them a constant and large uplifting hope for others ; a steadying power and a wise guidance for those not equally privileged or endowed, and which should give opportunity for the youth of the future, whose intellectual capacity might justify the largest 149 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION mental furnishing. Therefore, they said, edu- cate, educate, educate! in all ways, from the lowest to the highest, for whatever is possible for a full-orbed manhood and womanhood. This, of course, predicated the education of the highest part of one's nature. Their theory was right. If education does not make for spiritual life and spiritual power, it is lamentably insufficient. Therefore, the gospel of Christ was to be put into every study, into every science, into every line of thought, and into every form of work. The hope of the race must find itself by being in the cur- rents of God's holy love and will and providence. In accordance with these views the first year after peace was declared a school was opened in 1866 with the exalted name of Fisk University. It is mentioned in the records as a " Colored High School," held in the buildings previously used as a military hospital. Nashville was then a mili- tary cam'p under the command of the late General Clinton B. Fisk. The record reads : — This Association, already endeared to the colored people, has purchased a parcel of ground in the western part of the city, and has procured extensive buildings from the government, in which will be opened for colored children graded schools, a normal school, and in time a first-class college. This broad Christian foundation will exert a widespread influence upon the 150 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee. It will receive liberal patronage from the friends of educa- tion in the North. General Fisk had his heart upon the inauguration of the two movements above noted in behalf of the colored people of Nashville and now rejoices in their success. Professor John Ogden of the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission and Rev. E. M. Cravath of the American Missionary Association will be superintendents of the institution. A little later the record follows : — A large concourse of teachers and pupils, with a number of distinguished invited guests, — Governor Brownlow, Chancellor Lindsley of the State Univer- sity and superintendent of the city schools, Senator Bossom, General Fisk, and a goodly number of other civilians and officers, — were present to witness the opening of this institution. After prayer by the Rev. R. E. Allen of the " Presbyterian Church, Rev. E. M. Cravath gave a brief statement of the foundation and objects of the school." Dr. Cravath's statement was : " The buildings were secured by General Fisk. The object was to establish a free school for colored chil- dren, equal to the best in the country. The building when properly furnished would accommodate from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred pupils. Children would be taught without charge, and the teachers would be among the best in the country. They desired also to train good teachers in the Normal department. It was to be a permanent affair and would be kept up at least eight months of the year, if good friends in 151 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION the North kept their pledges. It was called the Fisk School. The name honored the school, and he trusted that the school would honor the name." Superintendent Cravath was followed by Gen- eral Fisk, who said he rejoiced that he was per- mitted to stand as godfather at the baptism of a new and free school. He had been led to take a retrospective glance at his own life to-day. Well did he remember when, more than a half cen- tury ago, his poor widowed mother in midwinter bound him out to an old farmer. He remem- bered how the farmer sat in his mother's cabin and how the contract was written by which he was bound out; how he was clothed and sent to school; how his bundle was tied up and he was put upon a horse behind the farmer with his mother's blessing and tears. " These chil- dren are much better clad than I was at that time." He continued: "Chancellor Lindsley gave you a good thought. This war terminates, not in slavery, but in liberty for the land. It struck the shackles off from the slaves and gave liberty to four million of people. And now, while yet in the smoke and flame of battle, be- fore peace has come and brooded over the land, we find these generous people of the North com- ing down with all these advantages and giving them to the Freedmen freely." 152 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT Governor Brownlow said: " Your naming this Fisk School is a just compliment to a meritorious man, and I will be pardoned for saying in the presence of General Fisk that if a man less pru- dent, less kind, less reasonable, and less just, both towards white and colored persons, had been placed at the head of the Bureau in this city, it would have proved a failure. I can only say by the way of admonition and encouragement to the colored friends: Attend your schools, learn to read the word of God, and then learn to love and practise it; and by way of caution and ad- vice, I admonish you to be mild and temperate in your habits and spirit, and your conduct toward the white people. As a friend, loving the insti- tution and desiring the prosperity of what you have undertaken, I advise the teachers, male and female, to be exceedingly prudent and cautious, and do nothing offensive to the predominant party here. You may think it a little strange that I give such counsel. I do it because if Gen- eral Thomas were to take away his soldiers and pull up stakes and leave here, you would not be allowed to occupy this schoolroom a week, not a week." These teachers were thought to be mistaken philanthropists who worked their con- sciences overtime. After interesting remarks from Rev. R. H. i53 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Allen, Mr. Walker, and Rev. Mr. Harris, — these last colored men, — Rev. E. M. Cravath arose and announced that the school would be open for pupils at nine o'clock to-morrow, saying: " It is deeply gratifying to see an official recog- nition from Tennessee in the person of its gov- ernor and from the superintendent of the city schools of Nashville. The principal, Professor Ogden, is a teacher of large experience in Nor- mal schools." One more record of a few months later: "Nashville, June 15: The great ' Fisk ' free school for colored children closed its first term to-day. A large number of citizens crowded the chapel to witness the examination. Nearly one thousand pupils are taught in this school by fif- teen excellent teachers. The examination to-day was a brilliant success." So the University with its large name was on its way. A university suggests institutions dow- ered with great resources, rich with the treasures of scholarship, with buildings the growth of years, and appliances for research in all the sci- ences and the 'ologies, with their graduate stu- dents and postgraduate scholars; and here was Fisk University in barracks, with the majority of its classes in the primary grades. Very well, Moses was Moses as truly in the bulrushes as i54 Erastus M. Cravath, D.D. POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT when, " come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," and " way down in Egypt land " stood face to face with the king and said, " Let my people go." Oxford when it began more than a thousand years ago was not Oxford of to-day. Yale University, which lately celebrated its two hundredth birthday, be- gan when half a dozen ministers of the gospel brought together a few books and said, We will give these for the founding of a college. The name is in the interests and purpose, in the faith of what is to be, and in the hope of final achieve- ment. Let us wait two hundred years and then ask whether or not this child was rightly named University. After the school had existed one year The American Missionary Association published a report from its annual meeting voicing the thought and purpose of education in the new institution. It read thus : — The true method is to show the colored people the possibilities of their own race, and inspire in them, by visible and living examples, a noble ambition. This, sooner than anything else, will remove unworthy preju- dice against them, and raise them to respectability and influence. It is impossible that a whole people should all advance equally. In common as well as in military- life there must be leaders, and the mass will advance more rapidly because these march ahead. These leaders 155 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION must be trained. For this, Christian colleges are needful. In a recent volume entitled From Servitude to Service, in which the president of Fisk Univer- sity ably set forth the justification of this early purpose of the founders of this institution, we have a perfect demonstration of the profound wisdom of the educational work thus entered upon; of the essential necessity of such educa- tion and the fruitfulness of it in the progress of a people — a wonderful advancement within forty years. As the institution advanced we read : — Providentially there has been developed in connec- tion with our educational work in Fisk University a remarkable power of song. There have been added to the students those who possess special musical ability, until a choir of eleven has been selected, whose ren- dering of the popular standard pieces of music has attracted so much attention that the teachers and trus- tees and friends of the institution have felt they had a mission to accomplish in behalf of the struggling University in which they are being trained and in behalf of the education of their race. Under the management of Professor G. L. White, who has been their instructor in their training and who originated the idea of relieving the pressing necessities of the University by using the talent of the students, this choir has commenced a series of concerts in the North. 156 General Clinton B. Fisk POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT This was the beginning of the musical depart- ment which has won fame for this institution, and the beginning and completion of Jubilee Hall. The writer of this remembers well when this first troupe made its debut at the National Council in Oberlin in 1871. When a resolution was of- fered thanking it for " the sweet songs of Zion," some minister arose to say they were sweet songs, but it was not correct to call them " songs of Zion." The answer was, " That depends upon what you mean by Zion." Let us remember here these " Founders." My own acquaintance with General Fisk began in the winter of 1885, when I came from my parish in France to be secretary of The American Mission- ary Association. General Fisk sat in the execu- tive committee of the Board, a goodly figure to look upon, with a commanding presence, thought- ful and large-minded, prompt and regular in at- tendance, like a soldier. I soon discerned that he was one of the most lovable of men. Distin- guished in the councils of the Methodist Church and loyal to it as became him, he was yet broad enough to identify himself thoroughly with a society whose officers were members of another church family. All the years until his death we had the wealth of his wisdom, his large experi- ence, his exceptional ability, and his most sincere i57 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION and earnest Christian devotion. He was a con- spicuous example of a nobly inspired and divinely consecrated life, constantly held sacred to the good of others. When one is shining like a radi- ant star in witnessing to what is right and noble in Christian citizenship, in a world where selfish- ness is so common and so mighty in its dominion, where materialism has its own gospel, it is well for us to recall the reality and power of convic- tions to truths which were unpopular, and firm adherence to principles, when such adherence did not meet with prevailing approval. The memory of such a man is a perpetual and triumphant testimony to the power and glory of the religion of Jesus Christ, an inheritance for our contem- plation and imitation in the duties and fidelities of life. Such a one was the man whose honored name Fisk University bears. May it never cease to cherish the memory of one whose whole life was expressed in the old Latin phrase, " I am a man, and whatever interests man, interests me " ! His subsequent benefactions to the school amounted to nearly thirty thousand dollars. President Cravath was chiefly known to Fisk University by his administration there. He en- tered upon it in 1875, when the school, scarcely nine years old, was yet unformed, and was presi- dent of it for a quarter of a century. He put 158 ^ ^ '^1 » i '" i_|_fc, /-•- -■/ f ' ---/ c ■ / / J 1 ,! K»jL J\. / I if til 1 \ * fir fa 1 «' i(V( V / / / / i f * ■i 1 *I1 ■ fie . -r v "', .^.U-W.--l p ^fe.^S^ =3= : t3&S!^3w^EBjMiJ u -''* fc. - 1 i i I l i^&A*^ -v • ?J POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT his own stamp upon it. Of large vision, of great faith, of prophetic purpose, with positive convic- tions and strong will, he had the qualities of greatness. While he did not shrink from being identified with an unpopular cause, he held his convictions with such love for mankind and such charity for those who did not share his opinions, that he won their personal regard and disarmed many prejudices against the institution. His in- tellectual power was crowned with Christian sincerity and devotion, and his influence upon thousands of students will go on in their lives for many generations. All this is true and more, and yet the early records of The American Mis- sionary Association indicate that perhaps Dr. Cravath's most significant work was not as presi- dent of Fisk after all. For ten years previous, as superintendent and field secretary of the As- sociation, he traversed the Southland, planning with wondrous wisdom for the system of schools which in all the years to come should give light and save life. He selected sites, purchased prop- erties, organized schools of every grade, and found the principals who should manage, govern, and direct them, and those who should teach. AYhen xAtlanta University in Georgia, Storrs School in the same city, Talladega College in Alabama, Straight University in New Orleans, i59 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Tougaloo University in Mississippi, Le Moyne Normal School at Memphis, Avery Institute in Charleston, Gregory Normal in Wilmington, Bal- lard Normal in Macon, and very many more were in their first stages of evolution, he was there. The first building of Atlanta University came from The American Missionary Association, and Dr. Cravath was the man who supervised its erec- tion. If he did not create the institutions, he rocked their cradles and led them up from their beginnings. This service in his career was a large part of a great life, and as one generation passes and another comes, so Dr. Cravath lives in thou- sands made better by his influence and in the presence of the good diffused among multitudes who do not know their indebtedness. Others have brought repute to Fisk Univer- sity among the educational institutions of our country. There was Professor A. K. Spence, the scholar, for a time head of the school, who left an attractive chair of Greek in Michigan Uni- versity to give his large and loving life there, yet well content so he could be nearer God's heart and feel the solemn pulses sending blood through all the widespread veins of endless good, a pure-minded, public-spirited, noble man, strong in goodness. There were Professor H. S. Bennett with his true mind and heart, helpful and earnest 1 60 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT and faithful, and Professor F. A. Chase, conscien- tious, exact, genuine, the soul of sincerity and unselfish consecration. I may not mention those who happily remain, who have had their full share in making Fisk University what it is. There is a story in mythology which tells us that Jupiter once offered the prize of immortality to him who was most useful to mankind. The court of Olympus was thronged with competi- tors for the reward — the soldier who had fought for his country; the philanthropist whose deeds of love for his fellows had caused his name to be universally honored; the artist, painter, and sculptor whose creations had given form to noble ideals and made the earth less gross and dull ; the poet by whose genius the people had their songs ; the musicians who had incarnated the harmonies and melodies to cheer and uplift burdened lives were brought forward. A venerable man among the observers looked on with intense interest in the scene to see which one would be awarded the coveted prize. Jupiter seeing him, asked who he was. " I am only a looker-on," said the sage ; " these competitors were my pupils." "Then," said Jupiter, "this is my judgment: crown the faithful teacher with the prize awarded to the most useful of mankind ! " Certainly those who are thus educating a people " 161 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION " to attain their highest possibilities " are among the most useful of mankind. The process of this work, inconspicuous though it may be, in which graduates have become known and esteemed, and it may be eminent, through the teaching and fidelity of their instructors, has become not merely Christian salvation for multitudes, but has been a mighty social and civic blessing to many communities. This service cannot be told here, but it is written in God's " Book of Remem- brance," and whether duly recognized or not while the work is quietly going on, in the day when the love of God shall be justified to men it will receive its reward. The story of Fisk University in its beginnings has been dwelt upon here because it is a type original and permanent. There is nothing so indelible as an original stamp. The die which gives the impression to coin does not merely make its mark upon the surface. Every particle under the die feels the impact, and when in the years by constant abrasion the stamp no longer appears on the surface, it nevertheless, put to scientific test, shows that the die went through the coin. So in twoscore years, though many changes appear on the surface, the character works and will work toward the name. The men who planted it were not mistaken when they 162 POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT said, " There should be an education which should demonstrate the possibilities of the race." In the adjustment to existing conditions, the question of industrial training has not been for- gotten. For a people beginning their history with the rights and privileges of freedom this also was absolutely essential. The Association's theory was to make industrial training a con- tributing force to Christian education. It did not accord with the modern Southern theory of negro education that it should be distinct from other education and compose about all the needs of these poor people destined to be a permanent peasant class, and no more. At the same time, it was plain enough that the vast majority of this people — as indeed all peoples — must live by bodily labor. They must earn their bread. They must therefore be taught and trained to do this in such a way as will contribute to the honorable life to which every negro boy should aspire. Upon the superstructure of mental en- lightenment they must build themselves up by intelligent industries. Hence, with the planting of permanent schools leading up to higher edu- cation, plans were at once made for such indus- trial training as seemed to be practical in nearly all schools for girls, and, whenever possible, for boys. As soon as funds could be secured shops 163 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION were erected for work in wood, iron, and various other handicrafts. Labor was honorable and to be honored. Thus the creed with which the As- sociation began took in the school of the mind, the conscience, and the heart; the school for handicrafts and for the culture of the soil. Farms were connected with several of the higher in- stitutions that students might be instructed in agriculture. 164 IX SIGNIFICANT YEARS The school in Charleston, South Carolina. — Relief So- cieties. — Freedman's Bureau. — General O. O. Howard. — A new feature in administration. — New churches. — Organization of Talladega Normal School. — Development to Talladega College. — Department of theological study. — Emerson Institute in 1868. — Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment. — Straight University. — Begin- ning of Tougaloo University in Mississippi. — Character- istics and features. — The Fifteenth Amendment. — Proc- lamation of President U. S. Grant. — Comments of Carl Schurz. — Georgia governor's examination of Atlanta University. — Testimony of examiners. — Seven new chartered institutions. — Twenty " normal " schools. — Sixty-nine " common " schools within seven years after slavery. IX SIGNIFICANT YEARS THOUGH peace had been declared, the records of the Association show that our work was not permitted to go for- ward in peace. In some sections great violence was manifested towards the freedmen; their newly founded churches and schoolhouses, and frequently their habitations, such as they were, were destroyed. Personal violence towards the negro — most innocent cause of the war — did not hesitate at life itself. " The schools " were " execrated " by the majority of the whites — the teachers ostracised, and " some suffered per- sonal violence." It will not have escaped the attention of the reader that in the report from Avery Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, within a year after Lee's surrender, ten of the twenty teachers were natives of Charleston and identified racially with the negro people. These were from the fami- lies of free negroes who had been previously educated in Charleston. These free negroes, who numbered two hundred and sixty-two thousand 167 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION persons in the South in i860, with property es- timated at twenty-five million of dollars, — while they were subject to much unfriendly legislation, and were denied admission to public schools, — were not legally excluded from such education as they could secure among themselves. Hence, from the youth among the free negroes many teachers for the elementary grades in the rapidly extemporized schools of the Association were found in several cities where its schools were located. What was especially remarked also when our schools began was the proportion of pupils who were far more Anglo-Saxon in their parentage than they were African. Indeed, a Southern au- thority in a careful work entitled The Resources and Population of South Carolina, published in 1883 with the state imprint, writing of the negro people, uses the following words : " One-third has a large infusion of white blood. Another third has less, but still some; and of the other third it would be difficult to find an assured specimen of pure African blood. If the lineage of these negroes whose color and features seem most un- mistakably to mark them as of purely African descent be traced, indisputable evidence may often be obtained of white parentage more or less remote." 168 SIGNIFICANT YEARS The teachers who went down from the North were soon disillusioned if they were at all influ- enced by any other than the most serious mis- sionary spirit. Ostracism is a mild term for the disesteem with which they were regarded as " nigger teachers/' Moreover, colored people themselves were not remarkable as being exempt from the ordinary characteristics of human beings. There were all sorts, — the pious and the profane, the virtuous and the vicious, the trusting and the jealous, the faithful and the treacherous, the industrious and the lazy, the prudent and the careless, the bright and the stupid, the sprightly and the sullen. Out of such families the children came. The teachers needed the thirteenth chapter of First Corin- thians — and needed it every day — with the emphasis on the climacteric and supreme grace of all, in order to get on; and many of them had the chapter by heart. The Association had now reached a stage of steady progress and the year 1867 presents but few incidents. The work in Africa, the missions among the North American Indians, in the Sand- wich Islands, and in Siam were duly reported, and the customary comments and resolutions made; but the attention and interest was upon the rapidly developing work among the freed- 169 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION men. In 1861, when the ignorant, half-clad, half-famished negroes numbering thousands in all had fled to the protection of our armies, various " Relief Societies " were formed in the North devoted largely to physical help. These societies multiplied rapidly and were soon so numerous that their labors became conflicting. In May, 1866, they were finally concentrated and united into the " American Freedmen's Union Commission." After this event, the American Missionary Association and this Freedmen's Commission were recognized by " The Freed- man's Bureau " and the country as the two cen- tral institutions in the freedmen's work. This " Union Commission," however, had scarcely been organized before it began to disintegrate. The Cincinnati Branch, the oldest of the West- ern societies, withdrew and united with the American Missionary Association in 1866, and the " Cleveland Branch " followed in 1867. The Chicago office closed in 1868, which left the As- sociation as the sole national organization. The Boston, Philadelphia, and Maryland branches, however, still continued in active operation. The " Freedman's Bureau," created by an act of Congress in 1865, is constantly acknowledged in the papers of the Association at this period with the highest praises for the Chief Commis- 170 SIGNIFICANT YEARS sioner, Major General O. O. Howard. Under his wise and impartial administration the Bureau was a constant defense to the Association in times of danger, and a most efficient helper in making provision for the constantly growing needs of its work by the wise disposal of funds to the Association for the erection of school buildings. Rev. Dr. Wm. W. Patton and Rev. Dr. John C. Holbrook were in Great Britain in behalf of the Association, which had now entered upon an experiment in office administration quite at variance with its former and with its present method. It was decided to divide the Associa- tion into three departments, — the Eastern, the Middle West, and the Western; the Eastern, as the central office, being located at New York; the others at Cincinnati and at Chicago. The Middle West Department, with its own secretary, treasurer, and Advisory Board, administered upon the missionary operations, schools, and churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and a part of Georgia. The Western Department, with its secretary and treasurer, administered upon the work in Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The Eastern Department contained by far the larger number of schools and teachers and had for its administrative territory the District of 171 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina, a part of Alabama, and a part of Georgia. It was thought that thus the increasingly exigent work would be prosecuted with greater vigor and would doubtless appeal with more urgency to the different parts of the country for financial support. The foreign fields remained as heretofore under the direction of the office at New York. This arrangement was entered upon in the hope of financial consolida- tion of other agencies, which after a few years was brought about when the organization was perfected by centralizing the entire administra- tion at New York. This period witnessed the formation of churches in Charleston, South Carolina; Atlanta, Macon, and Andersonville, in Georgia; Chattanooga, Nashville, and Mem- phis in Tennessee; Talladega and Selma in Ala- bama, and Camp Nelson and Berea in Kentucky. All of these were ministered unto by white pas- tors from the North. The new school buildings at Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, were dedicated, and schools were opened at Selma, Marion, and Athens in Alabama. At Talladega, Alabama, in November, 1867, a school was organized with three teachers and one hundred and forty pupils. For two years previous the " Cleveland Freedman's Aid Com- 172 General O. o. How \rd SIGNIFICANT YEARS mission " had maintained an excellent school at this point, so that most of the pupils to enter the new school had already received primary in- struction. Aided by the government, the Asso- ciation had purchased " a fine college property consisting of thirty-four acres, and a handsome brick building which had been erected before the war at a cost of thirty-four thousand dollars." When the General Field Agent six months subsequently visited the school, he reported, " We began last year and now have at Talladega one of our best Normal schools in fine working order." Nine counties adjacent, thickly popu- lated, had no school of any sort. The principal was importuned for teachers. He met some of the colored people in their log churches and told them there was but one way in which they could secure a teacher. " Pick out the best specimen of a young man you have for a teacher, and bring to church with you next Sunday all the corn and bacon you can spare for his living. I will take him into my school and make a teacher of him." Following his advice, some brought their corn, from a handful to four quarts, — more often a handful, — in the pocket, or tied in a handker- chief, and laid it on the altar in front of the pulpit, singing as they marched around the aisle. 173 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Eight or nine young men were selected from the different localities and furnished with rations. These came to Talladega ten, twenty, and thirty miles on foot with sacks of corn and bacon on their backs. There were positively no accommo- dations in Talladega for them, and they were obliged to sleep on the floors of such cabins as could receive them and give them a chance to bake their corn bread by the fire. This they did. For their studies, they began with the alphabet, and after six months, by giving their whole time to one thing, were able to read in the Second and Third Readers, and had been taught " by practice upon other pupils " in the school " how to teach read- ing." In the summer these pupils went home to teach " bush " schools until the fall term opened, when they were back on time at Talladega and in force. The principal had applications from fifty more young men and women who wished to come in the same way and on the same terms, bringing their rations, mostly corn-meal, asking only for a place to bake it and a shelter for their heads. When the General Field Agent pronounced this " one of our best Normal schools," he must have had the prophetic vision to see what the years, not the months, would develop. Normal schools, two years after Appomattox, with ex-slave boys and girls for pupils, could only have existed in name, i74 SIGNIFICANT YEARS as a babe is given the name which he is to wear when it stands for somewhat other than a babe. In the faith of what was to be, many institutions, which have since justified their right to be so called, were named " Normal schools," and the young teachers who went forth able to read fairly well in the " Second Reader " doubtless in time were able to prove both their faith and fidelity in their larger attainments. The school developed step by step with the development of the people. The teachers who began the work here proved to be teachers of great faith, willing to identify them- selves with a service which, not understood, was distrusted by the intelligent white people, who as yet could not have been expected to welcome these unknown mission teachers from the North with confidence, nor to look upon their work with cor- diality. However, one of the most vitalizing forces of this early work was the religious zeal and consecration which surrounded it with an atmosphere so surcharged with power and love that the teachers thought of little else than their mission. They lived with their students, worked for salaries which barely sustained them, assumed burdens in and out of school hours that only de- votion to their Lord and the salvation of his needy ones could inspire. The supreme and ultimate purpose which called forth this self- 175 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION sacrificing missionary spirit was the same as that of the churches from which these people of great faith came. This faith, great and prophetic as it was, could not have forecast the Talladega College of to-day. It was then housed in one building, erected by slaves as a school for the sons of their masters, and which in war times had been converted into a prison for the Federal soldiers. The Associa- tion had purchased this school building for the race whose labor had reared it, and whose free- dom was due to the army which furnished the prisoners. The story of this stately building has other points of interest. Its slave carpenter, who sawed the first plank and chipped the first shav- ing for the edifice, sorrowing most of all because his children would never have a chance for edu- cation like the children of his masters, has lived to see three of them take diplomas in the young college, and pursue advanced studies in a recitation room containing a window-pane on which in 1862 a Yankee soldier had cut the words, " Prisoners of war." These children of the former " slave carpenter " were for years teachers in the institution, and one surren- dered her teachership only to become the wife of a minister who was trained in the same school. 176 SIGNIFICANT YEARS It is a far cry from that day to the present Talladega College, with its twenty buildings clus- tered about the original campus, its thirty pro- fessors and instructors, and its annual average attendance of five hundred and fifty pupils in its several departments, — preparatory, normal, col- legiate, college, theological, — with its indus- trial departments in woodworking, in iron and printing, and its agricultural, with its farm of eight hundred acres, its machinery, tools, and stock. Now when twoscore years have passed, the visitor at Talladega College will not find the same local conditions which existed at the beginning. The citizens who could only have been expected to meet the school at the outset with distrust and perhaps with fears for the outcome, and who could not have been other than painfully at vari- ance with Northern people and their ideas, are counted as their steadfast and greatly appreciated friends. They do not hesitate in their cordial opinions and commendations of what they see every day. Their cordiality is founded upon the careful observation of years. They are repre- sented on the Board of Trustees. In 1868 a church was organized, and teaching for preachers was advertised. This brought to- gether eighteen students for the ministry but i77 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION three years out of slavery. Now, ten churches may be counted as the direct outgrowth of this first Congregational Church. In 1873 a distinct department of Biblical study was opened. Nearly two hundred ministers have received their train- ing in this theological department, and many have served in different denominations in important churches. To Professor George W. Andrews, d.d., in thirty-two years' continuous service must be accredited most of the instruction and training of these. He began his work in 1875. In 1879 the institution, with a look forward to the beginning of a four years' college course, elected the Rev. Henry Swift DeForest, a gradu- ate of Yale in the class of 1857, subsequently an instructor at that university, and who had been drafted into the army in the war between the North and the South. In his service as chaplain he made his first acquaintance with the South. His entrance upon his work at Talladega sixteen years later was his second visit. If his welcome, either the first time or the second, failed to be im- pressive to him, he yet lived long enough to win the full confidence and hearty regard of the people among whom he wrought out his Christian work, and in a way that has made his memory in the town as well as in the college both precious and permanent. During his administration the regu- 178 SIGNIFICANT YEARS lar college course was entered upon, though pre- vious to this time certain college studies had been blended with the theological course. This institution, of highest grade for the col- ored people in the state, with a constituency of six hundred thousand to draw from, certainly has had a most interesting history. It carries the banner as being the first boarding-school for the freedmen in Alabama and the first in the United States to introduce among them indus- trial training, which has always had its place at Talladega. Instruction has been given in agriculture, gardening, woodworking (such as cabinet-making and carpentry with architectural drawing), ironworking, bricklaying, brickmak- ing, printing, and cobbling. The girls have been taught nursing, domestic science, such as house- keeping, millinery, and making of garments and laundering. These studies are obligatory. The present value of the property at Talladega is about $250,000. Additionally above $160,000 have been invested in endowments and scholarships. The year 1868 introduces us to Emerson Insti- tute in Mobile, Alabama, bearing the honored name of Ralph Emerson of Rockford, Illinois, who made a generous contribution towards the necessary purchase money. The principal re- ports it as a " college " from the time of its be- 179 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION ginning. " We hope to make the institution one of the greatest instrumentalities for good in the land." This optimism was not unnatural. The Avery Institute at Charleston in 1869, but three years of age, sends a report of progress that reads like fiction, and yet it is the careful statement of Professor Warren, a conscientious and disci- plined educator. He writes, " I assumed charge of this school in January, 1869. I have taught a class of fifteen in Algebra who have made excel- lent progress. They understand Algebra as well as any class of whites I ever saw; are as quick in solving, as apt in explaining. I am daily learn- ing to see more differences between individuals and less between races." As the year closed, it was found that for every teacher commissioned by the Association there had gone out from the freedmen themselves two teachers who had been trained in our schools; in all, numbering three hundred and fourteen negro recruits as teachers for the negro schools in the South within four years. Reconstruction was yet in preliminary stages, but order was gradually emerging out of chaos. The Fourteenth Amendment had made freedom secure for those who had been slaves, and the Fifteenth had been passed, confirming the freed- men in their liberty and in their civil and political 180 SIGNIFICANT YEARS rights. But what should be done to prepare these poor and illiterate persons, living among those hostile to their citizenship, for their new and weighty responsibilities ? The Association sought to answer this ques- tion so far as it could for the state of Louisiana in founding an institution which it was hoped would grow into a full-fledged college. Antici- pating this future, the school, like others, at once took on the exalted title of " University." The thought of those who were responsible for the large name probably was that this would not merely magnify the character of the school for the present, but would also help the institution to work more rapidly and consistently towards its name. It was no doubt a mistaken judgment, but in part it has accomplished the original pur- pose in holding unwaveringly to the theory and policy of affording the largest possible develop- ment for the exceptional students who have sought its instruction. This definite and deter- mined purpose to further a broad and generous education for those who should prove capable and worthy, has alone saved the name of " Uni- versity " from ridicule. Early in the year 1869 the school was chartered as Straight University, taking its distinctive name from a generous patron, Hon. Seymour 181 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Straight, of Ohio. Like all schools for the freed- men, it opened with the primary grades. But the A. M. A. officers rightly believed that such was the native ability of its colored people, and such their eagerness to learn that higher courses of study would soon be in demand, and results have partially vindicated their faith and fore- sight. In seven years from the founding a class of eight was graduated in law; in six, the first normal class came out, and in ten the first college class. The establishment of the public school system in the South soon after the beginning of recon- struction created a demand for teachers, and to this end special attention was directed to the devel- opment of the normal department with a very thorough course of studies. In due time college studies were introduced and certain students have availed themselves of its provisions to secure its advantages for themselves. Meanwhile the insti- tution wears its name as an ideal of what it hopes some day to realize. A theological class was started in 1870, which in time developed into a distinct department. Over forty now in the active ministry and hon- oring their college in their work, owe much of their impulse and interest as well as the intelli- gence to sustain them in their gracious service to 182 SIGNIFICANT YEARS the instruction and influence of this department. Their churches have become centers of life and light for large regions of the state. For about ten years a flourishing law school was maintained, but this has now become an inde- pendent school. The church in connection with the school radiates its influence in all the depart- ments, and impresses a distinctly Christian stamp upon all exercises. What Straight University has done or is doing for Louisiana and adjoining states cannot be expressed in figures, nor be estimated by the large number of graduates from the different de- partments. Probably for the last fifteen years or more the attendance has ranged between five and six hundred each year, so that a great host of young people have received the elements of an English education; have been quickened morally and made stronger for the serious work of life. They are scattered all over this section of the South, where the colored population is especially dense, and are found in all the trades and pro- fessions. Many of them are successful and rising physicians; many of them are pharmacists and dentists; many are in law and the ministry; and a large per cent are teaching. If we bear in mind the fact that the nine hun- dred and odd colored public schools are dependent 183 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION almost wholly on the missionary institutions for properly qualified teachers, and that Straight has furnished more than her proportion, her vital relation to the social, moral, and intellectual life of the colored people of the Gulf States becomes strikingly apparent. But for the leading part her students have taken along these lines, the great progress of these thirty odd years of freedom would have been impossible, and the friction be- tween the white and colored races, which is even now so serious, would have been tenfold more perplexing and dangerous. The position of Straight as an institution unsurpassed in the quality of its work has often been recognized by Southern people. Several of its trustees are citi- zens of New Orleans. What Straight has done is only preliminary to the greater work that lies before her. The de- mand for the college and professional courses grows apace, as the colored people realize more and more that the question of self-help, in which lies the preservation of their liberty and citizen- ship, must be wrought out under leaders of their own race in a large part. Along this path lies the independence of character which is the founda- tion of selfhood. And that she may be able to continue, on a larger scale and in greater perfec- tion, the noble educational ministry that distin- 184 SIGNIFICANT YEARS guishes the thirty years of her history, for which the colored people cherish such deep gratitude, it is earnestly and ardently hoped that some phi- lanthropist and patriot, wishing to benefit his kind and country by investing in some institu- tion of learning that will yield sixty or a hundredfold in the noble fruits of righteous- ness, may furnish her the means to enlarge her buildings, increase her library, and endow professorships. In 1870 a new institution at Tougaloo, Missis- sippi, ten miles from Jackson, is reported as being in the process of preparation. Two dormitories had been nearly completed. One hundred acres of excellent land were purchased for cultivation on the part of the students. A main feature of the institution was to be a normal department for colored teachers. Here again we have the be- ginning of a normal school with a university title. The optimism which anticipated the distant future has, however, been less harmful to genuine advancement in fundamental studies from the fact that the teaching (faculties) of all these in- stitutions have recognized the actual situation, and have labored as faithfully in laying the foun- dations for an education as if the institution were not overweighted with its name. There is this to be said, however, that in thus naming their 185 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION institutions intended for development in higher studies the missionary societies were but fol- lowing the nomenclature of the South, where it was and is the popular custom to designate all schools that maintain a certain grade as a " college." Tougaloo, after thirty-six years of history, stands unique among the higher schools of the Association in its location. Fisk, Talladega, Straight, Tillotson, are located in large towns or cities; Tougaloo is in the country. Jackson, the state capital and the nearest town, is seven miles away. At Tougaloo there is not even a village; a railroad station, post-office, store, two or three small houses are all that one finds on alighting from the Illinois Central train. Hidden from the railroad by the woods are the admirably located dozen buildings of the school. Back of the build- ings are broad stretches of cultivated lands, or- chards, and grazing-lands, under student care. In the country and in the state, made up mostly of plantations, having few large towns or cities, in the very heart of the " Black Belt," Tougaloo University draws its students mainly from, the plantations. Mississippi furnishes most of them, but Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Texas are usually represented. Not more than one other of the great schools of the South 186 Chapel, Tougaloo University, Miss. Beard Hail, Tougaloo University, Miss. SIGNIFICANT YEARS touches so closely the great plantation population, — the population most ignorant, most needy, most important, most hopeful. In the uplifting to character and religious education of the young men and women from the plantation lies a large hope for the negro race. The institution is chiefly devoted to secondary and academic grades. The Normal and Academy courses are intended to fit for general life and to prepare for entrance to college. College work was undertaken in 1897 and exceptional students have persevered to secure a college diploma. No other similar school in the State provides instruc- tion in a complete college course. As the years move on it is expected that the school will enter into the full inheritance of its name. Manual training and industrial work has been in progress at Tougaloo for two decades. It was one of the earliest schools to provide for it, and it has had continuous development. Probably no other school of its kind under the care of the Association has more thoroughly coordinated it with its regular school work. The extent and thoroughness of the manual training work in the courses have been based chiefly on those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The girls are instructed in the various arts of house- keeping, needlework and in domestic science. 187 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION The agricultural feature of the school is espe- cially emphatic. Tougaloo is a thoroughly religious school. Christian character is the aim of all its work. Rarely have any been graduated from the school who are not Christians, and its graduates have done good Christian work. The record of some of them is a noble one. The testimony of one of the most distinguished citizens of Mississippi is, " I believe Tougaloo is possibly the most potential factor in developing the negroes of our state for the high functions of useful citi- zens." Several gentlemen of Mississippi are upon the Board of Trustees. As this year closed, the Association catalogued thirty-five churches, seven chartered institutions, sixteen graded schools and one hundred and forty-seven common schools with about 20,000 pupils in all, and a permanent school property costing over a half million of dollars. The year was exceptionally memorable in the act of Congress amending the Constitution of the United States, the Fifteenth Amendment. The Proclamation of President Grant was an unusual notification of an unusual event. The importance of the Act, however, justified the departure from usual custom when he said, " The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment constitutes the greatest t88 SIGNIFICANT YEARS civil change and the most important event that has occurred since the Nation came into life. I call the attention of the newly enfranchised race to the importance of their striving in every hon- orable manner to make themselves worthy of the new privilege. To the race more favored here- tofore by our laws, I would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new citizen. I would therefore call upon Congress and upon the people everywhere to see to it that all have the opportunity to acquire knowledge which shall make their share in the Government a blessing and not a danger." It was not deemed out of place for the Ameri- can Missionary Association to call attention to the fact that its very charter of work in the South was upon this basis, and that its five hundred mis- sionary teachers had given and were giving the enfranchised people both the hope and the help indispensable for this legal privilege. Believing that our form of government cannot endure un- less education and intelligence are generally dif- fused among the people, it had planted its schools among the ignorant to show them not only that they could learn for themselves, but also that they could teach others what is necessary for good citizenship. This act, pronounced by the President of the 189 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION United States to be " a measure of grander im- portance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present time," now, after more than three dec- ades, is not only challenged with respect to its wisdom, but has been practically nullified and trampled upon by most of the Southern states. The assertiveness of this disfranchisement, and the political emphasis given to several acts of several states to accomplish this has led many in the North to question the political sagacity of the Congress which passed the Amendment and of the President who approved it. To meet this sen- timent, — for it cannot be justly dignified with any stronger expression, — the Hon. Carl Schurz whose dealing with the question has the moral authority which comes from a man who never allowed any consideration of policy to obscure its ethical meaning, and who wrote from an intimate knowledge of all phases of what is called the " Negro Problem," declares that the Amendment was not only politically wise but was a moral ne- cessity. He suggests that had it not been for this, the South would have continued under mili- tary government, or the colored people would have been relegated to a condition of practical bondage; their freedom effectively neutralized by state and municipal action. 190 SIGNIFICANT YEARS No one well acquainted with the drift of things in the South at that period will have the slightest doubt that such a policy, viz., leaving the states lately in rebellion " entirely to themselves," would have resulted in the substantial reenslavement of the freedmen with incalculable troubles to follow. It was foreseen that if the exercise of suffrage by the bulk of negroes in the South might be undesirable in the long run, it might not prove as deplorable as would be an in- definite military rule. It was hoped that the Southern people might see fit to subject the suffrage in their states to suitable qualifications equally applicable to whites and blacks. " That the suppression of the Negro franchise by direct or indirect means is in contravention of the spirit and intent of the Fifteenth Amendment hardly admits of doubt. The intent of the provisions of the State Constitution in question as avowed by many Southern men is that the colored people shall not vote. . . . This is evidently a political condition which cannot continue to exist. It cannot possibly be per- manent. There will be a movement either in the direc- tion of reducing the negro to a permanent serfdom, or a movement in the direction of recognising him as a citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail. ... I risk little in predicting that the reactionists are in this respect preparing new trouble for the South, and that only their failure can prevent that trouble: the reactionists are the worst enemies the Southern people have to fear. " Mr. Schurz in his discussion gives the hopeful view that high-minded Southern men of high 191 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION standing will not consent to be permanently set at naught by the reckless among the white popu- lation who are using race antipathy and race an- tagonism to further their purposes. The united efforts now being made for education in the South, heartily and effectively supported by wise and patriotic and conscientious citizens, can do much for a solution of the problem in harmony with our free institutions. It is not thinkable that the Fifteenth Amend- ment can be repealed. It is not probable that the country will ever consent to the practical reen- slavement of a race once made free. Let us hope that the Act of 1870 which President Grant hoped might be " a blessing and not a danger " may yet have the recognition of a united and loyal people. Let us hope. In 1 87 1 the Governor of Georgia appointed a " Board of Visitors," all Southern gentlemen, " to attend the examination of Normal and Pre- paratory departments of Atlanta University" and report to him. The school had then been in active operation about two years. The examinations continued through three days. The examiners, nine in number, transmitted their experience, saying, " at every step of the examination we were impressed with the fallacy of the popular idea which, in common with thousands of others, 192 SIGNIFICANT YEARS the majority of the undersigned have heretofore entertained, that the members of the African race are not capable of a high grade of intellectual culture. The rigid tests to which the classes in algebra and geometry and Latin and Greek were subjected unequivocally demonstrated that under judicious training and persevering study, there are many who can attain a high grade of intellectual culture. Many exhibited a degree of mental cul- ture which, considering the length of time their minds have been in training, would do credit to members of any race." This testimony which cheered the hearts of President Ware and Pro- fessor Chase has not only been confirmed in the subsequent history of the institution, but also greatly accentuated. But seven years had elapsed since the close of the war, and less than a decade had passed since the Association had begun to work out its mission with any degree of definiteness. As the fruit of this decade there were reported seven chartered institutions, consisting of Hampton, Fisk, Berea, Talladega, Atlanta, Tougaloo, and Straight, to- gether with the Theological department of How- ard University, twenty graded schools with a certain amount of instruction called " Normal," with special reference to the preparation of teachers, and sixty-nine common schools, chiefly 13 i93 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION under white teachers. Forty-seven students were for theological studies, and fifty-six were enrolled in regular college classes. Certainly this is a good record for seven years out of slavery. The number of schools and pupils reported was fewer than in the immediate beginning of the work in the South, but those which existed had become far more significant. 194 X CONCENTRATION Withdrawal from all foreign fields except Mendi. — Special attention to preparatory schools. — Also to the organization of churches. — Rev. G. W. Andrews, d.d., in Alabama. — Religion in the schools. — Gifts of Mrs. Daniel Stone of Maiden, Mass. — New buildings for Atlanta, Talladega, Fisk and Straight chartered institu- tions. — Hostility developed in the South. — Ku Klux Klan. — The Southern idea of the " problem " versus the theory and practise of the Association. — Standing for colors. — Death of Rev. E. P. Smith in Africa. — His work in the South and in the Indian field. — Death of Secretary Whipple. — His character and work. — Death of Lewis Tappan. — Death of Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn. — ■ Dr. Strieby's estimate. — The coming of Henry Swift DeForest to Talladega College. — His impressions of his work. X CONCENTRATION TEN years had established the Association in its theory of missions to the negro people. The educational results so far, both in extent and quality, had brought a com- plete reversal of judgment to those who had ques- tioned their capacity and who had believed their inferiority to be innate and inherent. But mil- lions for whose presence in our country the nation was responsible were yet untouched by any positive Christian influences. It was, therefore, decided, now that the missionary work was thoroughly organized, in the interests of concentrated effort and in view of the responsibility for this larger field, to withdraw from all foreign work with the exception of the Mendi Mission in Africa. Meanwhile the Southern people, who with splendid endeavor had adjusted themselves to their new and hard conditions, had inaugurated a public school system to afford elementary in- struction in which they had so far advanced that in many cities and larger towns secular schools for the negro children made the duty in this direc- 197 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tion on the part of the Association less pressing. Thoroughly qualified teachers for these, however, were as yet few — the product of the schools founded and carried on by Northern faith and benevolence. Many educated in our schools were already doing remarkably well relatively as teachers in elementary instruction when the con- ditions, the lack of heredity, of early home- training, or of any wide and generous reading are remembered. But the overwhelming major- ity of teachers for the public schools within ten years could themselves be but little more than beginners. It was increasingly evident that Christian benevolence, which looked beyond this secular elementary and inadequate instruction afforded in such public schools as had been started, must not stay its hand in the larger missionary neces- sity for positively Christian schools, whose char- ter should be in the supremacy of Christian faith which should do the teaching. The teacher who visited the pupils in their homes so that the poverty and barrenness of home life felt her ele- vating touch, was more than a teacher of geog- raphy and arithmetic. It was faithful instruction in the studies of the books but it was also religion through the week, the Christian influence of the Christian school permeating and vitalizing homes 198 CONCENTRATION and character with its saving power. The Asso- ciation schools were not only far in advance of the purely secular schools in their methods and standards of study, but they were also working out the teaching of the New Testament in the development of character so that principles and conduct should be Christian. The state schools were not chartered to undertake this kind of work. They could not do it. There was no question therefore for the Asso- ciation as to what was the right way. The public schools could relieve it from much of its merely elementary work, and they were already doing this. This accounts for the fact that the enrol- ment of pupils at this period showed a great decrease while our work was being concentrated, and while the courses of studies and the stand- ards were continually being strengthened in thoroughness and enlarged in scope. It was during this second decade of develop- ment that particular endeavor was made for the organization of Congregational churches. The pleadings for them were constant, and there were many tentative experiments to meet these urgent requests. It certainly was not because the Asso- ciation was indifferent that these churches in- creased in no greater numbers, — far from this, — but because many endeavors to organize them 199 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION were found in their first steps to be practically useless. For the old excitement to give place to intelligent conviction, tradition and superstition to Bible knowledge, and the sensual enjoyment of religious emotion to Christian principle and duty, all called for time. The Congregational way of self-government in many cases asked for a fitness for self-government which did not exist. At the same time, such churches as managed to live proved in their sound, healthy, religious influ- ence that no discouragements should cause the Association to relax its efforts to plant churches which might live. The Rev. George W. An- drews, d.d., who was largely identified with the planting of new churches in Alabama, eight hav- ing been organized within a short period, wrote, in 1875, as follows: No tongue can tell the greatness of the need that such work be done here as the Association is doing. Let me say that there is here a vast wilderness of ignorance and sin scarcely entered by the light of a Christian civilization. Though this wilderness is alive with people, you may travel a hundred miles into it and not find a schoolhouse or scarcely a church edifice without turning from the way to hunt one, and when found you could scarcely guess what the building is for. The curse of two hundred years hangs heavy upon the people and the land. A true son of the South said to me this week, " The future of the negro race 200 CONCENTRATION looks dark. The only hope is to educate the colored people; the North must do this, for the South is not able, and, moreover, is utterly indifferent to it." But so completely at one with the missionary purpose of the church work were the schools in religious character and influence that it was difficult to draw a line between the two depart- ments to tell where the one ended and the other began. For example, in 1879, of fifty-two grad- uates of Atlanta University fifty, at their gradua- tion day, proved to be consistently professing Christians. Fisk reported additions to the Col- lege Church at every communion. At Talladega College all but six of the boarding students were professing Christians. The pastor at Hampton wrote, " Nowhere can teachers be found more earnestly evangelical, laboring often beyond their strength to bring souls to Christ." At Berea all the graduates of the year were professing Chris- tians. These Christian students, as they went out to their school work in vacations, had learned to preach also. It was carefully estimated that in this one year one hundred and fifty thousand pupils were taught by the students of these higher schools. The churches in number had risen to sixty-seven. We had now come to the close of the second term of the Presidential administration of General 201 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Grant. Conditions had greatly changed since the war. The country had been rapidly increas- ing in population and in wealth. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans had been linked with a line of continuous rail. In the North there was a general improvement in educational methods. Literature in the North had reached a higher level than ever. The Association felt the impulse, and its higher institutions for the preparation of teachers absorbed in a large measure its vigor- ous efforts and its resources. Through the gen- erous gifts of Mrs. Daniel Stone of Maiden, Massachusetts, of $150,000, new buildings had been added to Atlanta, Talladega, Fisk, and Straight chartered schools. Meanwhile white people with courage and noble endeavor were adjusting themselves to their new conditions, but the Association was meeting a hostility it had not experienced before. The barbaric element among the whites — and slavery had left a deep taint of barbarism — came out in its worst insults to the " nigger teachers " with the burning of our schoolhouses here and there. The Ku Klux Klan, which I find characterized in our magazine as the " Thugs of America," an organization to overawe the negroes, often sought to terrorize their teachers, while the better social elements naturally looked askance at those whose presence 202 CONCENTRATION was a reminder of conquest and humiliation. These teachers had gone to the blacks with a feeling of obligation to those who never before had their human rights acknowledged and who were needy in body and soul. Meanwhile the cause of the negro no longer enlisted in the North the same degree of early sentiment which charac- terized it. It had come to be a calm and cool — somewhat too cool — consideration of Christian duty and missionary obligation. It was, never- theless, felt to be the great problem before the nation. The Southern solution of the problem was largely one which relegated the negro to perpet- ual inferiority. He was to " keep his place " as a member of a subject race, and if necessary he was to be compelled to stay in his place. This is not to say that there was no exception to this theory — only that it was the dominant one. The best elements of Southern society wished the negro well. They would have him better his con- dition, to be a more useful factor in their political economy. They favored his education along lines that would make him a better laborer and more thrifty in his honest acquirements, but they did not wish him to aspire socially or politically. He must never forget that he is a negro, belonging to a race constitutionally inferior. The American Missionary Association, with no 203 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION political theories to exploit, with no social doc- trines to teach other than those of human brother- hood, went to the negro people with the theory that God had made of one blood all on the face of the earth and that there was one common Saviour, whose way of redemption was revealed for all men. It simply predicated the manhood of the negro as entitled to all that a Christian civ- ilization had to give so far as he should prove himself capable of receiving it. Whatever knowl- edge, whatever influences a Christian civiliza- tion has to offer to invigorate and enlarge the souls of men anywhere, should not be forbidden to the negro or withheld from him. It was inevitable at this period that the Associ- ation must look for its support to those who ac- cepted its principles. It was not influencing or antagonizing those who did not accept these principles. In whatever disturbances and perse- cutions which came through the hostility of those who were violent, there was only patience and hope for a better day. The records of the American Missionary are singularly free from ex- hibitions of bitterness. It had no lessons of hos- tility towards those who differed. It went with its broad principle of love to God and good-will to man, and never yielded an iota from the duty and privilege included in this principle. 204 CONCENTRATION How, through all the excitement of this trying period, it kept on its work of regeneration, stand- ing by its colors, teaching and preaching with success, can only be explained as we now review the history of those days, by the fact that it had the guidance of God, and that it was following and outworking a wisdom higher than that of man. Said John Wesley in his day, " The best of all is God with us." The prediction that the theories which the Association was outworking would fail, was constantly disproved in the Chris- tian results of its Christian work. It was in 1876 that intelligence came from Africa of the death of one whose work for the Association for ten years had been very promi- nent and efficient. The Rev. E. P. Smith, who early entered into the service of the Association as District Secretary, stationed at Cincinnati, was asked to visit Africa with reference to the reconstruction and enlargement of the mission work there, and while on this mission he died, after an illness of two days, of African fever. Mr. Smith was born in South Britain, Connecti- cut, and was graduated at Yale College in 1849. He studied two years in Union Theological Semi- nary, New York, and while there associated him- self with Charles Loring Brace in his work of reclaiming and finding homes for destitute and 205 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION vagrant children. He completed his theological studies in Andover, Massachusetts, and was set- tled at Pepperell in that state. At the breaking out of the war Mr. Smith gave his services to the Christian Commission, where he demonstrated his administrative ability to such a degree that when the war came to an end he was sought for by the Association. After a brief service in Cin- cinnati he was called to take charge of the field work of the Association in the South, and was eminently useful in the work of planting schools and colleges for the freedmen. When General Grant announced his Indian policy, and invited the different benevolent societies to appoint agents to cooperate with the government in the work of Indian civilization, Mr. Smith offered his services and was appointed to Indian tribes in Minnesota. His work here brought him after- wards an appointment as " Commissioner of Indian Affairs " in Washington, D. C. Here he met a merciless opposition from designing men who sought to profit at the expense of the Indians. His faithful administration of the office of Indian Commissioner, which he filled with signal ability, made him many enemies, and on the retirement of the Secretary of the Interior Mr. Smith re- signed and was elected President of Howard University. This position he was to assume upon, 206 CONCENTRATION his return to America. His sudden death in Africa was felt to be a great loss to the Associa- tion. His services were such as richly deserve its remembrance. The heaviest bereavement that had fallen upon the Association came at the end of this second decade of its Southern work in the death of its senior Secretary, Dr. Whipple. From 1846, when the little society was a thing of derision and pity, for thirty years he had held this post of respon- sibility. With a faithfulness and spirit of self- sacrifice that they only knew who were in the office closest to him, he had held on against popu- lar consent to wrong until he had seen the world come over to his side. One of the early graduates of Oberlin College and of its theological school, Dr. Whipple had been a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in his alma mater for nine years. He brought to the new-born Association not merely a radical championship of the rights of man and an intense conviction of the sin of slavery, but with it a considerate and irenic spirit, a calm and judicial mind that had much to do with the char- acter which the society took on of positive and fearless testimony for its convictions, with the gentleness and freedom from the bitterness so often seen in those who plead for reforms. Of 207 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION large physical stature, with a poise and dignity that were attractive, the first Corresponding Sec- retary began his life-work. It was a laborious and anxious life, but it was a great one, more than fulfilling the hopes of those who had called him from the quiet of his studies and his teach- ing at Oberlin. A clerical assistant, who later came into inti- mate knowledge of his quality and character, thus writes of him : — My first introduction to Secretary Whipple was on an afternoon as he sat at his desk in the little upper office of 56 Reade Street. There was another desk in that room that I was hoping to use for a few months if all should be satisfactory, and it was therefore with a little trepidation as well as a great deal of interest that I looked upon the Senior Secretary. . . . His well-knit form and broad shoulders, gray hair — a silver halo above his face — a fine broad forehead, and kindly eyes looking forth from under Websterian eye- brows gave me the impression of a man of unusually strong character and intellect. As I came to know him, I felt that the patrician element was in his inner nature as well as in his outward appearance. If I were asked to name the principal characteristics of Secretary Whipple as I knew him in the time that followed, I should certainly say, " sound judgment and fairness." . . . These were strikingly preeminent. But there were other qualities I should wish to name. His devotion to details was a strong point in all his office work, for 208 CONCENTRATION an accurate knowledge of the subject in hand, so that praise or blame should fall only where it was merited, formed the basis of his fairness. He knew to the minutest detail whereof he spoke and wrote. He was industrious to the extreme. I never took my seat in the morning without passing a long table in the outer office which had this true legend connected with it. In the early days when struggle and self-sacrifice were prime factors in carrying on the Society's work, Sec- retary Whipple burnt his candle at both ends, some- times even writing in his office till one or two o'clock in the morning; then, wrapping himself in a blanket, he would throw himself upon this table for a few hours' sleep, rising and resuming work by four or five o'clock. Even when I knew him it was difficult to get ahead of him in the morning, for he always was very early at his desk, working through the day, hardly taking time for a hasty luncheon. Vacation or respite was not in all his thought. In his letter dictation there was a sort of balance as if he were weighing what he was saying. Persistency was also a strong characteristic. Sensi- tiveness to what was right and wrong made him all his life such an intense champion of human rights and freedom. His judgments were never quick, but when once his opinions were formed, they were so clear to his own mind and so reasonable that they carried con- viction to other minds. This well-balanced judgment, together with his dignity, candor, and noble bearing, made him a strong force when he visited Washington for conferences with the government on Indian or edu- cational affairs. All these stern virtues commanded respect. I should be unjust to him, and to myself, if M 209 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION I did not add the more genial virtues of simplicity, generosity, and kindliness. Though always busy, he was ever ready to help others when he could. He so tempered his fervor with simplicity, his strength with modesty, his profound thought fulness with kind- heartedness that no one felt the severity. He was kindness itself. If he had the quality of humor, he did not have time to indulge it, his life was given so in- tensely to more serious things. The nearest approach to humor that I recall is that when in looking over a letter that he had himself written, which did not quite suit him for accuracy, he said to me in a very severe tone, " When you make such a blunder as that, I wish you would do it in your own handwriting." But as his assistant I have no remembrance of a single unjust or unkind remark. On the contrary, he was always appreciative of work done, and thoughtful of the comfort and well-being of those with whom he was associated. When death suddenly called him after thirty years in the secretaryship, and he left us, it was a well-beloved friend who had gone, and he be- queathed a great inspiration for others to carry on the work he had so well begun and in which he was a pioneer. Of the other heroic men associated with Dr. Whipple in the early and dark days of the anti- slavery struggle and of the Association's history, many had fallen in death. Five of its presidents had in succession died. Mr. Lewis Tappan, to whom the Association perhaps more than to any other one man owed its organization, and who 2IO CONCENTRATION for twenty-seven years had been identified with its administration, died in 1873. Like his dis- tinguished brother, Arthur Tappan, he was deeply interested in the antislavery missions which preceded the organization of the Associa- tion. He was prominent in the movement which rescued the Amistad captives, and which served so largely to arouse the nation to the arrogance and aggressions of the slave power. It was he, with the Rev. S. S. Jocelyn and Rev. Joshua Leavitt, who raised the funds to defend these captives in the courts. When at last they were released, John Quincy Adams, the old man elo- quent, took pleasure in recognizing the en- ergy and transcendent ability of Lewis Tap- pan towards the final success. By many Lewis Tappan was regarded as " a man of one idea," whose whole being was absorbed in the work of emancipation. He was far from that. His pas- tor, Henry Ward Beecher, at his funeral did not overstate the facts when he said, " He joined him- self to whatever was pronounced in morals or in religion, whatever was most aggressive, what- ever would be to him the mightiest attack upon the kingdom of Satan, whatever would carry for- ward best the kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To these causes, whatever might be their humility, however feeble, he gave himself 211 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION heart and soul with the personal influence and all the power of pecuniary influence which he could command." His frequent benefactions were large, and for years he gave his unrequited serv- ices as treasurer of the Association. Few per- sons had broader sympathies; he was the effi- cient friend of other missionary societies; he aided in the education of young men and in the endowment of colleges, and was personally active for the religious welfare of his fellow men. He lived to see his leading positions vindicated in the admissions of many who once most strenuously opposed them, and to realize some of the most cherished aims of his zealous life. Another of the heroic spirits of 1846 laid aside his armor in the last year of this second decade of new work in the South. The Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, who died in 1879, was a Puritan hero. In 1839 ne was the active chairman of the com- mittee to defend and protect the Amistad captives. He was prominent in the organization of the Association. For seven years he was its Record- ing Secretary, for ten out of the subsequent years, from 1853 to 1863, Corresponding Secretary with charge of the Home Department, and from that date to 1879, until his death, a member of the Executive Committee. A bold and determined man, but as gentle as he was brave and as cautious 212 CONCENTRATION as he was intrepid. Said Dr. Strieby, who was much of the same spirit himself : — It is a great mistake to suppose that the bold and determined men who take front rank in great moral conflicts are destitute of kindly impulses. Mr. Jocelyn was utterly uncompromising where duty called, yet I have seldom known a man of more tender sympathies, of quicker, almost womanly, sensibility to sorrow or suffering. Nor are all such men, as is often imagined, so intent on pushing great reforms as to overlook the rights of others. Mr. Jocelyn was most scrupulous in regard to the claims of all men, even of his opponents. Nor are all such seemingly rash and headlong men lack- ing in caution. He was the most cautious man I ever knew. The marvel is that such a man could have risked reputation, property, and even life itself in an enter- prise so doubtful of success and beset with so many dangers to the peace of the church and the nation. The only explanation was in his clear perception through all glosses of the path of duty and the over- whelming impulse of conscience to pursue it in spite of all dangers. Of such stuff are moral heroes made. Mr. Jocelyn was born in 1799, and with a well- rounded life of fourscore years he inherited the promises. " One generation goeth, and another genera- tion cometh." The last offices of loving regard had only been uttered when we hear from an- other of such like spirit and temper as to cause 213 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION one to feel that the mantle of the departed had fallen on him. Rev. Henry Swift DeForest, a graduate of Yale, and subsequently an instructor in that col- lege, after a few years of successful ministry, had just accepted the presidency of Talladega College in Alabama. He wrote his reasons : — First, I am needed. This is a great work and the workmen are few. It is not here that men stand carpet- bag in hand waiting for a chance to preach. We have more of a field than we can occupy. On all sides comes up the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us." I am often weary on Saturday, and poorly enough pre- pared for Sunday, but I am spared the anguish of not knowing where to go or what to do. Few would care for my shoes, but I hope to wear them myself and wear them here. Second, there is here perhaps an unsurpassed oppor- tunity for influencing men. I am not only a " home missionary," but also a foreign missionary to Africa, and that last with special facilities. I am master of the language, and do not work at the disadvantage of a half-learned and half-mastered tongue. Without the honors of a foreign missionary, I am also without many of his disadvantages. It is a double missionary field. Third, the most pressing work in our own country is here. As surely as in 1861 our national peril is in the South. Patriotism as well as humanity and Chris- tianity keep me here, and no campaigning in our recent war seemed more of a duty of loyalty than that in which I am now engaged. Certainly just now I would 214 CONCENTRATION rather be here than in any other part of the universe of God. Tell our friends at the North that we do not need their sympathy but we do need their help. He was a good type of the workers of the Association in 1880. In 1 88 1 Tillotson Collegiate Institute at Aus- tin, Texas, was established and opened to stu- dents. It was named in honor of Rev. George J. Tillotson of Connecticut, whose generous con- tributions made it possible. 215 XI WELCOME AND UNWELCOME The fluctuations of Southern sentiment regarding the work of the Association. — Favorable views. — Rev. A. G. Haygood, d.d. — Reaction. — The Glenn Bill in Georgia. — The two civilizations, one of righteousness and the other of force. — The color line in churches. — Caste prejudice. — Caste and social distinctions. — Back- ward glances. — Brave women. — Tribute of an eloquent negro to the women teachers of this period. XI WELCOME AND UNWELCOME IT is interesting to notice the fluctuations of Southern sentiment and the waves of popu- lar opinion regarding the work of the Asso- ciation among the colored people, as its methods and results had become better known. The fears that negro education would lead to danger were proved to be without foundation. The mission- ary magazine in 1881 reports the annual closing exercises of various institutions and uses these words with reference to the growing spirit of brotherhood between the North and the South : Perhaps the influence of our institutions upon the leading minds of the South, and especially upon those interested in the popular education, never was so great as now. Governors of southern states, mayors of cities, presidents of southern colleges, representatives of the pulpit, the bar, and the press attend our anni- versary exercises and enter heartily and with apprecia- tion into the spirit of the work. In this we find much occasion for thanking God and taking courage. It is fidelity to the principles that have actuated the Asso- ciation for nearly forty years that is winning the hearts of the people, and every year confirms the conviction 219 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION that we have only to press forward in order to achieve the best results for the whole southern portion of our country. An ex-mayor of the city of Atlanta, at the dedication of the First Congregational Church, said that " the thrift, orderly habits, and acqui- sition of property " in a certain portion of that city were " mainly due to the school and the church of The American Missionary Associa- tion." As an illustration of the favorable feeling, one among many, the Memphis Daily Appeal, the Daily Avalanche, and the Public Ledger devoted a large space to the reports of the anniversary exercises of Le Moyne Institute, with accom- panying editorial commendations and apprecia- tions, from one of which we quote : — The feeling in the city in favor of universal educa- tion was never stronger than it is now. This is plainly shown by the interest everywhere manifested in the Le Moyne Institute for negroes which gave so enjoy- able an entertainment Monday night. A number of prominent citizens who were present expressed the greatest surprise and astonishment, and the opinion was general that the inculcation of ideas such as those of which the graduates seemed possessed was bound to do good to them and by reflection upon the whole community. Said an old planter, " I attended the exhibition out of pure curiosity, never dreaming that it would impress me as it has done. I have always 220 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME scouted the idea of negro education, and I may say I have been its enemy. I am perfectly will- ing to give way now, however." These were common sentiments among the better class of Southern people twenty years after our work began in all the states. Nor must we fail to recognize at this period the noble impulse given to this friendly Southern sentiment, and the truly Christian sympathy given to " our brother in black " and those who were seeking the education and elevation of the children of the freedmen in the person and work of the Rev. A. G. Haygood, d.d. A gallant ex- Confederate soldier, — a Southerner by birth and breeding, and the son of a slaveholder, brought up in the wealthy planting section of Georgia, — he entered upon his, at first, self-appointed task in behalf of negro education as a mere private, a volunteer in the ranks where he found so many noble workers. But his knowledge of the negro, of his capacity and his needs, and the best methods of reaching practical educational results, soon marked him for the high position to which he was called as the trusted confidential agent of the Slater Fund, bequeathed by a benevolent man of Connecticut. Already in the first year of the fund this good, strong man found himself plead- ing on every possible occasion for the practical 221 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION system of education so long pursued by The American Missionary Association. Like all prophets, Dr. Haygood was far in advance of his time, but he did not fail to find within the hearts of thoughtful Southern people a sense of brother- hood with the lowly ones of another race and a desire to do justly by them. His visits to the schools of the Association carried with them hope to the pupils who were struggling up, and his addresses were full of Christian teaching and human sympathy. Professors and teachers alike greeted his presence as that of a forerunner who brought the assurance that the morning of the day had come when the North and South should see eye to eye and should be found in emulation and in happy cooperation to solve the hard prob- lem which was the inheritance of slavery and for which North and South were both responsible. " The negroes," said Dr. Haygood, " need edu- cated Christianity, and they must have Christian- ized education to get it. This the state does not give, and cannot give. To achieve this most de- sirable and necessary result the schoolhouse and the church must work together. There must be Bibles in the schools that are to train teachers among this people, and there must be Christian men and women in them who both teach and prac- tice religion. Your Association is doing this 222 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME most necessary work on a very broad scale. You are raising up in these schools men and women who can teach and who must teach the children of their people. I say ' must,' for Christianized education must by its instruction and directing impulses perpetuate and diffuse itself." " This problem," continued Dr. Haygood, " cannot be solved by legislation. It must be Christian schools and the Church of God." That was a great heart as well as a wise head which a quarter of a century ago, when memories of the bitter conflict were so fresh and the diffi- culties of brotherhood were so many, could quote from the platform of an antislavery society the words of a great leader in antislavery days, Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, and, endorsing them, say : — One word concerning the future of the Society; that word is conciliation, conciliation by meekness, by love, by patient continuance in well doing. The field is wide open for schools and for the preaching of the gospel — two great forces operating as one for funda- mental reconstruction. In both these lines of effort the work of conciliation, conciliation of the South to the North, and to the restored and beneficent Union; conciliation of the races to each other, white to black and black to white; conciliation of contending sects opposed with traditional bigotries to the simplicity of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. 223 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION " Thomas Jefferson," added Dr. Haygood„ " who in 1782 said that the two races equally free cannot live in the same government was not a prophet. Leonard Bacon was. But this work of fundamental reconstruction is a slow process. It will take generations. Lifting up a nation or a race is a slow process. Wherefore, the great- est necessity for wisdom and patience in your work. Certainly you find more sympathy and more of the spirit of cooperation than you found ten years ago. You have learned your work better, and we of the South have learned perfectly its value. Your methods are good. They are yielding happy results." These were the gracious, grateful words of a Christian patriot, a large-minded, great-hearted, and whole-souled man. Would that he might have lived on ! for such men were few, and soon were more needed than ever. What a difference there would have been for the honor of the state he loved so well, for the honor of the nation which held his greater love, could such a presence and such a voice represent both his state and nation in the United States Senate with his pleadings for reverence of law, and for justice and mercy to " our brother in black," in place of the utter- ances of hate and bitterness which we are now humbled to hear ! 224 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME But the progress of mankind in its moral evo- lution does not come to its fruitage with the first blossoming of promise. This kindly appreciation and the generous expression of it was the very thing to stir prejudices anew and reexcite the oppositions of those who objected to the elevation of the negro. With the realizations of advance- ment and the possibilities of intellectual strength came a mighty wave of reaction on the part of lesser minds and lesser souls always everywhere in the majority. It was at this time that our records abound in allusions to the " infamous Glenn bill " in the legislature of Georgia, when the agitation began which removed Southern sup- port from Atlanta University, and which in due time reached the legislatures of other states, and deprived other institutions of the cooperation which their good results had previously secured. There had been no change in the kindly meth- ods and good-will of the Association. The re- action was indeed the natural result of its suc- cesses, the constitution of the public in the South being what it was. The class that " see not and hear not, neither understand," but who have votes, often bring discouragements and disap- pointments, and make the progress of others apparently slow and fitful. In this reaction the two civilizations which in the Civil War 15 225 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION had their struggle for mastery came once more into view. That for which the Association stood in 1846, which it had unswervingly maintained, and which has never been reversed, whether or not it has always been able to hold it against specific trans- gressions, is based upon righteousness. Its chief doctrine next to the obligations which find their supreme expression in the love and holiness of God is the brotherhood of man. This asks for equality of rights, for justice in all human rela- tions ; freedom for every soul to work out all that is possible in the way of human good and achieve- ment. It especially calls for the elevation of the moral, intellectual, and spiritual in man to the supreme place. The other civilization, built on force, has its doctrine of inferiority and superiority. It stratifies humanity: the weaker must serve the stronger. Might shall be the equivalent for right. This civilization, if it is worthy of such a name, flies in the face of the teachings of our Lord, who said, " Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among 226 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME you, shall be servant of all." This civilization of force, often dominant among imperfectly de- veloped peoples like the ignorant masses of the South, creates burdens grievous to be borne by those better and wiser souls whose lot is cast in locations where appeals can be made to prejudice and to passion. Confounding power with right, the civilization built on force may be dominant for a time, but it will pass away. The lower will give way to the higher in our country. The civilization of Christ will be the final one. Through what experiences this shall come to pass no one can foretell. Otherwise the nation must fall into the long procession of those that have already proved their falsity to God in their dishonor and destruction. The duty remains for all who wear the name of Christ to stand by and for his teaching, without wavering. This civilization of force as it began to realize the development of latent power in the graduates of higher institutions of learning and their aspi- rations for the privileges and duties that a sense of true manhood brings, started the agitation against schools with the taking motto, " Teach the negro to work," the underlying interpreta- tion of which was, teach the negro nothing but work. Out of this attitude of a feeling and pur- pose which overrode the real wisdom of nobler 227 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION thought in the South came the necessity for the Association to proclaim anew its principles and restate its reasons for them. We were not, as it was charged, seeking to change or regulate so- ciety anywhere. We were not called to do this. Our distinct work was and is to bring in the king- dom of heaven in the spirit of the gospel and to inculcate the principles of that kingdom, a king- dom of faith in God and good-will to man. Perhaps it was out of this atmosphere of re- newed discussion that the agitation of the " color line " in churches grew. Here again the Asso- ciation had no disposition to agitate questions which excited the prejudices of the Southern people; far from it. It had no wish or purpose to force the races together in any relation; but in church work, under the care of the Associa- tion, it was only consistent to maintain that a Christian church ought to stand ready to fellow- ship any one of any race whom Christ fellow- ships, and that it should turn no one away from its communion because of his race or color, or because his father or his mother had been a slave. The Association stoutly maintained that there was no reason which would meet the teachings of Christ, why there should be entire state or local organizations of churches which refused to fel- lowship churches the membership of which dif- 228 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME fered in race. The Association could not be true to its history, or true to its convictions, or suc- cessfully face the bitter prejudices of Jew and Gentile with the broad invitation, " Whosoever will, may come," and accept any less interpre- tation of Christianity. The churches planted, and in most cases partly sustained, as missionary churches by the Association, appealed to it to stand by them in their cry for this recognition of Christian manhood. This accounts for the reconsideration and dis- cussions of the question of caste to which much attention is given in our records of this period. Dr. Strieby pleaded against it with all his soul. From his heart came the words : " The Associa- tion was born an opponent of slavery. Amid poverty, sneers, and reproaches from the best of men as well as from the worst of men, it pressed forward in its opposition till the glorious end came. It must oppose caste as it did slavery. It began its work as the avowed enemy of caste. Caste prejudice is sin. It hinders the progress of its victims. It shuts up the avenues of trades, professions, schools, and churches through which alone those who have been emancipated from slavery can escape from ignorance and degrada- tion. If they rise it must be in spite of all the obstacles that caste can throw in their way. Here 229 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION is a call for an appeal to conscience." Dr. Strieby never questioned for a moment that the power of the living God which had destroyed slavery would be the one power in the land that would finally be irresistible. He was absolutely sure that the barriers of caste would eventually go down before that power. At the same time, there was no failure to draw the line sharply between caste and social distinc- tions. The cry for social equality had become a battle-cry. The Association insisted that caste and social distinctions are by no means identical. They rest on different principles. Companionship has its own qualifications. Social distinctions will take care of themselves. We have no mission to prevent the existence of classes in society. Classes will doubtless always exist, here and hereafter. Companionship is one thing, but caste is another. It means special class privilege. It excludes people from common rights and privileges. It degrades people on the ground of race or color. It denies equal rights, civil, political, and reli- gious. It is seen in its worst forms when it has the consent of Christian gatherings, and when it appears in religious bodies. Christ, who linked his life to the lowly, had his sympathetic com- panionships, but the spirit of caste never was his. Those who wear his name decline his spirit when 230 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME they proclaim the fatherhood of God and refuse the brotherhood of man. In his name the Asso- ciation has always protested — and, please God, always will protest — against imposing on a race the weight of an impassable caste, so that an es- tablished ruling class shall direct a permanent serving class, or that Christians of one race shall deny fellowship to that of another. But while these contentions for principles were going on the work was also going on. The Asso- ciation in its annual reports appears to have had a reminiscent tendency. It loved to look back- ward, but in no sense did it ever live retrospec- tively. If it took frequent occasions to review the past it was only to gain fresh courage and purpose for the future. It seems to have been practically quoting the song of the Psalmist when he said, " The Lord hath been mindful of us ; he will bless us." The past was the pledge and the ear- nest of the time to come. One of its backward glances at this period brought out the fact that up to this time not less than three thousand differ- ent missionary laborers had been enlisted in the service of the Association, and that fully two thousand of them had been women. What a multitude of gospelers for two decades! It was found also that the time when the number of the missionary workers ran highest was the Ku Klux 231 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION period, when the brave women could stand in places where men could not live. It is well to remember how in Mississippi at midnight one of these heroines was waited on by a Ku Klux company in masks and gowns. After a hasty robing she was obliged to open the door. The ruffian crew were abashed and ashamed as their leader exclaimed in surprise, " Why, you are a lady ! " They could offer no harm to a defenseless lady, but they gave her twenty-four hours in which to leave, notifying her that they would be around to see that she had obeyed. " Low down fellows," the citizens said. " No," she replied, " such men don't wear fine top-boots and have an address like theirs." The lone woman surrendered to their demands for her departure, saying that she scorned to tell them that though she was an Illinois girl she was the granddaughter of Rev. Dr. Allen, of Huntsville, Alabama. Another woman's school at Austin, Texas, was broken into by roughs. Then the post commander sent a guard to stand by day at her school door and escort her home at night and back to her school in the morning. She held her post. At another place in Alabama the Ku Klux Klan drew up in line before the lady teacher's castle of a schoolroom, and fired a volley of beans and shot through her windows on each side of 232 WELCOME AND UNWELCOME the chair where she was sitting. This delicate, fearless principal, graduate of Mount Holyoke, did not run away, but remained, developing a flourishing school for more than a score of years until age forbade her to teach longer. Another, having her school in North Carolina in an old Confederate gun factory, when a man offered to be one of twenty to put her on the cars by force if necessary, and send her away, said, " I was sent by The American Missionary Association, and when that says ' Go,' I will, and not before." She also remained for many years and never lost her courage. These are not exceptional illustrations of the greatness of heart and devotion to service whose records are in the unprinted annals of the As- sociation. They went as missionaries to en- lighten the ignorant, to lift up the needy, to preach the gospel to the poor, to bring them all to Christ, quietly, patiently, lovingly, and stead- ily, as they had a right to do, and as they felt it their duty to do, — young women of education, of refinement and culture, — nobly they fulfilled their mission. No words of appreciation could unduly ex- press their worthiness. A colored man, an emi- nent type of his race, from a sense of good re- ceived, wrote in his eloquent tribute to them : — 233 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION A worthier band has never furnished theme or song for sage or bard. These noble women left homes, their friends, their social ties, and all that they held dear, to go to the far South to labor among the re- cently emancipated slaves. Their courage, their self- sacrificing devotion, sincerity of purpose, and purity of motive, and their unshaken faith in God were their pass keys to the hearts of those for whom they came to labor. They were sustained by an unbounded en- thusiasm and zeal amounting almost to fanaticism. No mercenary or sordid motive attaches to their fair names. They gave the highest proof that the nine- teenth century, at least, has afforded, that Christianity has not yet degenerated into a dead formula and barren intellectualism, but it is a living, vital power. Their works do follow them. What colored man is there in all this land who has not felt the uplifting effect of their labors? Their monument is builded in the hopes of a race struggling upward from igno- rance to enlightenment, from corruption to purity of life. These are they who sowed the seed of intelli- gence in the soil of ignorance, and planted the rose of virtue in the garden of dishonor and shame. It is said that gratitude is the fairest flower which sheds its perfume in the human heart. As long as the human heart beats in grateful response to benefits received, these women shall not want a monument of living ebony and bronze. " Those women which labored with me in the gospel," said the apostle, " with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life." 234 XII NEW FIELDS AND OLD Bureau of Woman's Work. — Educational and evan- gelistic work in the hill-country of Kentucky. — Williams- burg School and Church. — Anti-caste pledges given. — An exciting incident. — Church organized at Williams- burg. — Northern capital in Southern mountains. — Magic towns and great promises for future commercial centers. — Colored schools and institutions pleading for expansion. — Church extension. — Concentration as a policy. — Death of District Secretary G. D. Pike. — Death of Rev. E. A. Ware, President of Atlanta Univer- sity. — Death of Corresponding Secretary James Powell, d.d. — An earnest life. XII NEW FIELDS AND OLD IN 1883, with a view to some partial recog- nition of the large share which educated Christian women had in this work from the beginning at Hampton, Virginia, the Bureau of Woman's Work had been organized. Its main purpose was to give Christian women fuller in- formation as to ways of cooperation on their part, and to assist in devising plans for help; to promote correspondence with Sunday-schools and missionary societies which might wish to undertake work of a special character ; in short, to further missionary interests among women in such ways as might present themselves. Miss D. E. Emerson, who had had large experience as a teacher in the field, and who subsequently was the efficient assistant of the corresponding secretary, was appointed to this work. It was at this time, also, that particular atten- tion was called to the pitiable condition of much of the mountain country inhabited largely by peo- ple of European descent who in the movements of civilization had been passed by and whose in- 237 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tellectual, spiritual, and material poverty pre- sented a strong appeal to Christian sympathy. The popular impression was that the Associa- tion was particularly organized to labor among people with dark skins. Quite otherwise, its mis- sion was to do Christian work among the needy without reference to race distinctions, its special inspiration being to carry on this without com- plicity with slavery and without the prejudices begotten of slavery. It made, and makes, dis- tinct appeals for peoples of different races only as a convenient classification. Its thought towards all is that of a common humanity — to remember the bond of brotherhood, and the de- mand for Christian help. In view of the deplorable ignorance and the evils flowing from this among the mountain peo- ple, a special fund in 1884 was asked for " to carry on educational and evangelistic work in the mountain regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the adjacent states." A special missionary in the service of the As- sociation reported Williamsburg, Kentucky, as a place of special need where a Christian school on an anti-caste basis could be planted with great benefit to a large and surrounding region in great destitution. The town was sixty-seven years old, yet it had never had a church edifice; nor had 238 NEW FIELDS AND OLD the county with a population of fourteen thou- sand ever had a church edifice finished and dedi- cated to the worship of God. There were few schools in the country around, and what there were could not be considered as worthy of the name. In Williamsburg a tasteful church was erected. An academy building followed, and able and experienced teachers were put in charge. When it came time for these two buildings to be dedicated, the executive committee was repre- sented by Dr. William Hayes Ward, and the As^ sociation also by Secretary Powell and Superin- tendent Roy. The church and school were dedi- cated to the service of God for the maintenance and spread of a free gospel and Christian educa- tion. Special emphasis was placed upon the fact that over the entrance to these edifices was writ- ten, " Whosoever will may come." This was emphasized because in a country where popular sentiment might otherwise close the doors to some upon a caste theory, it was felt that silence regarding that wrong would itself be wrong. The principles upon which the mission of the Associ- ation rested, and upon which it had entered the mountain country with its funds for the support of its institutions were made prominent at the dedication. The school soon was crowded with pupils eager 239 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION to receive its privileges. But suddenly a cloud the size of the face of a colored child was suffi- cient to shut out the light of the Dayspring from on high. A lad with a dark skin asked for ad- mittance. Letters came to New York with re- monstrances. It would never do. Could the Association have meant what it said at the dedi- cation, or was it simply hypocrisy and a pious fraud? The answer of the Association flew as fast as lightning could travel, " Admit all appli- cants irrespective of color" There was no time- serving about that telegram. It was simple hon- esty; and when other tests of the sincerity and truthfulness of its principles arise there are but two ways to meet them ; either fairly and openly to disown the principles and relegate them to the receptacles of errors which once passed for truth, or to honestly live up to them. To claim to hold them, and yet to disown them, is not Christian. Following the dedication of a church and school at Williamsburg, several churches in that general region were erected. If they have not been alto- gether successful, perhaps a sufficient reason may be found in the lack of members. The safe way to develop churches is to secure at least a nucleus of earnest, devoted Christians who are willing to sacrifice for a church and to stand by it in its 240 NEW FIELDS AND OLD struggles. To erect church buildings without this essential is to have a body without a soul. Where the conditions of success existed the churches have lived and are living. The attention given to the development of schools and churches in the Southern mountains became quite a distinctive feature. As the rail- ways pushed through the gaps of the mighty mountain wall, which has so long fronted the forces of modern progress, Northern capital had eagerly entered to develop the hidden wealth of the hills in coal, iron, and timber. The people who had long been passed by, and who remained in this new period in their history as poor as they had ever been, yet began to realize some of the reasons for their backward conditions. The schools and churches introduced by the Associa- tion were no small foundations for the new hopes and new life that had to some degree been awak- ened by the recent commercial activities. But here also great caution and wisdom were needed against new enterprises which were exploited by prospectors and promoters without substantial basis. Towns and cities were to spring into being and importance, — and did so on paper, — and all of them were calling for churches, and many of them for " colleges." To go slowly when magic towns were clamoring for immediate action 16 241 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION was often felt, by those excited by extraordinary and exaggerated promises, to be insufficiently sympathetic with the pressing demands of the hour, but as the years passed on and the syndi- cates collapsed, and the places that were certain to become great commercial centers did not even- tuate, the careful regard for such churches and schools as had reason for continued existence be- came justified. The Association was not obliged to retreat from unfortunate experiments. Meanwhile the institutions founded particu- larly for negro people were reported year by year to the benevolent people who were sustaining them. Berea, Hampton, Fisk, Atlanta, Talla- dega, Tougaloo, Straight, and, last, Tillotson were each asking for more room and larger facil- ities. The institutions classed as " Normal " were Avery at Charleston, Le Moyne at Mem- phis, Gregory at Wilmington, Lewis at Macon, Emerson at Mobile, Beach at Savannah, Lexing- ton in Kentucky, Storrs at Atlanta, Trinity at Athens, Alabama, Warner at Jonesboro, Brewer at Greenwood, South Carolina, Dorchester at Mc- intosh, and Burrell at Selma. Williamsburg in Kentucky was the sole school in the mountain country which had attained to this classification. Ten schools classified as Normal, founded and for some years maintained by the Association, were 242 NEW FIELDS AND OLD no longer on its rolls. Seven of them were sold to boards of education in the cities in which they were located and were continued under their auspices. Three had been closed from lack of funds to properly maintain them. Twenty-five years had gone into our history when the Association reported under its care in the South one hundred and twelve churches with eighty-nine pastors, thirty of whom were white and from the North. The transitional move- ments of the colored people often made it neces- sary also to take from the rolls in view of their unpromising conditions the lifeless churches which began with hopefulness and which had lost their membership. This could not be pre- vented and could not always be explained. Some- times it seemed to constituents that this exceed- ingly important part of missionary service pro- ceeded slowly. It did, and necessarily, yet the gain which was steady was actual, and the churches which really stood for their name com- pared well with young churches in the West. Several had come into independent self-support; these, usually, where our schools had made this possible. At the same time it came to be under- stood more fully by those intelligently interested in the Association, that the distinction between school work and church work differed more in 243 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION name and form than it did in reality. The su- preme thought of each was to bring souls to Christ and to educate for Christ, and the schools were doing much work usually done in other than missionary churches. The influence of the daily Biblical and ethical teaching upon young people, and the organized meetings for prayer and wor- ship under the leading and example of conse- crated teachers was most fruitful for the ultimate evangelism of the colored people. The specific theological departments, which existed in all our chartered institutions, had proved to be a gracious and successful agency in sending forth a more capable and more worthy ministry into other communions as well as our own. So far it appears to have been a good part of our mission to leaven with our teaching and to help churches which sadly needed aid, all of which did not count in our denominational sta- tistics, rather than to multiply churches which should wear our name but not show forth our principles or our character. Our most permanent successes for churches were where we were suc- cessful in laboring to displace ignorance with intelligence in our schools. Churches could have been planted more rapidly if the Association would have yielded to the temptation to plant and support them for the name of it. Come-outers 244 NEW FIELDS AND OLD from other denominations, where there had been church difficulties, with uneducated and self- elected preachers, often turned to the Association, ready to take our denominational name as soon as they could successfully pronounce it. En- gaged, however, as we were in a serious effort to reconstruct the religious life of a people, the Asso- ciation, while steadily seeking to build good foun- dations against the time to come, has felt it a duty to guard against hopeless expenditures which did not promise permanence and purity. The Association had largely centralized its educational work in six chartered higher insti- tutions and in fourteen normal and graded schools. Its rural common schools numbered thirty-six. The pupils in these Southern schools totaled eight thousand eight hundred and twenty- three. The year 1885 was marked by particular be- reavement in the death of Dr. G. D. Pike, a long time District Secretary, well known and wel- comed in the churches which he was wont to visit with the tidings from the fields at home and from Africa. Dr. Pike was a man of vigorous intel- lect, strong faith, and undivided devotion. At the age of fifty-four years he had put the best part of an earnest life into the service for the people emancipated from slavery. 24S AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION In this same year the Rev. E. A. Ware, Presi- dent of Atlanta University, was suddenly stricken down by disease of the heart in his forty-eighth year. President Ware was graduated from Yale College in 1863, and began his work in the South the year following the close of the war. For a full period of nineteen years — with the excep- tion of a single year of rest enforced by exhaus- tion and physical needs — he toiled with signal devotion in this chosen field with most gratifying and remarkable results. He was active in secur- ing the foundation of Atlanta University and its development ; he witnessed its steady growth and prosperity from the beginning. In consecrating his mind with all its culture, and his heart with all its affectionate strength to the work of the elevation of the colored people, President Ware set a noble example of sacrifice for the cause of Christ. The original stamp placed by him upon the University will long remain to testify to his great life. The death of Rev. James Powell, d.d., Corre- sponding Secretary of the Association, on Christ- mas Day, his birthday, in 1887, was deeply felt and profoundly mourned by all who knew him. Dr. Powell was born in Wales, December 25, 1847. At an early age he came to this country, and partly by his own exertions and partly by the 246 NEW FIELDS AND OLD help of friends whom he had won to himself by his happy disposition and evident indications of exceptional future usefulness, he obtained a gen- erous education, graduating from Dartmouth College in 1866 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1869. He was immediately settled as pastor of the Congregational Church at New- buryport, Massachusetts, his only pastorate, until 1873, when he was appointed District Secretary of the Association and was soon selected to take charge of the Western Department with his office in Chicago. Here he remained for nearly ten years. In 1883 he was elected Assistant Corresponding Secretary, and in 1885, Associate Corresponding Secretary with special supervision of the collecting field. Dr. Powell was a magnetic orator, brilliant and persuasive. Impassioned and imaginative, he was yet characterized by a cautious judgment and excellent administrative gifts. His genial nature, his warm and devoted Christian character, won all hearts. He was a prince of good fellowship and full of good humor. No one with him ever had a dull hour. One of the most companionable of men, he carried his heart on his sleeve. He was not capable of a mean act. With strong convictions he knew how to stand firm in his sincerity. 247 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Moved very largely by his urgent and repeated solicitations, the writer of this history became in 1885 officially associated with him, attracted by his generous sympathy and his missionary zeal. He was all that anticipation had hoped for and more. Not old in years when he died, he had yet lived a long life, — a life of grand sacrifice, of patient and undeviating love for the oppressed, whose necessities had become his own until he gave to them his life which Christ had saved. The real glory of his consecration cannot be chronicled in these pages, but the shining name in God's Book of Life in the days of God's remem- brance will stand out like a radiant star in the heavens. The influences which he set in motion " shall like a river run and broader flow." 248 Secretary James Powell, D.D. XIII EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION Financial experiences. — A new generation of teachers. — Conflicting thought of Southern white people respect- ing the emancipated race. — Transitional phases of life among the colored people. — Effect upon church life and stability. — The great gift of Daniel Hand of Connecti- cut.— His " Deed of Trust." — Sketch of his life. — Great enlargement in school work. — Twenty-one advanced schools added. — Higher standards of studies. — Fer- ment in the Southern opinion and hostility to negro prog- ress. — Appeals at the Annual Meetings of the Asso- ciation. — Dr. Charles H. Richards, Dr. Lyman Abbott, and others. — True and false estimates. — Dr. Strieby. — Death in 1899. — The Association's ideals stated by Rev. C. A. Patton, d.d. XIII EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION DURING these later years, when the work moved steadily forward, developing on permanent foundations, the experiences which belong to all voluntary benevolent work kept alert those who were responsible for its ad- ministration. One year would begin with the jubilation, " We are free, all debts are paid, and we start anew with courage," and in another year, with the same management and care, the captions of the " financial condition " were clothed in deep mourning. Editorials of The Ameri- can Missionary would be " cheered by the gener- ous benevolences which are reporting them- selves," only to be followed by " great regrets in view of diminishing receipts." The yearly finan- cial reports as we review them remind one of the children's seesaw with its recurring ups and downs. The apostle who said, " I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound," little thought what a text of common and trying expe- rience he was uttering for a missionary society. 251 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION It is the transition from gladness to sadness that tests the souls of missionary managers. An even success, over which there is no call for special exultation and no reason for disquieting discour- agement, is an ideal yet to be realized, but to be upon the Mountain of Transfiguration with heav- enly visions of the blessed to-day, only to be hur- ried down into the valley of humiliation to- morrow, with a strenuousness which is in painful contrast to the hopeful ascent, to find the sun gone down and the darkness everywhere is a cross which is no easier to bear because the experience is frequent. Nevertheless, the hymn which de- clares that " some way or other the Lord will provide " has much more of truth than poetry to commend it, and we find that year by year the schools open and increase in strength, the teachers do not fail to appear, and do not fail to bring a blessing to those who hunger for light on their dark and rugged paths. The churches grow in number and many of them in grace ; the preachers are found to minister to them, and many with final justification for their faith and patience; and so the education of the needy people goes on — the education of the soul, the mind, and the body. The story of it all can never be told, but the accomplishment is visible in part. A new generation of teachers, with few excep- 252 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION tions, has now taken the places of those who began the work. Then Christian men and women were filled with pity for the poor negroes, shown by a movement of missionaries and of money that was wonderful ; but we have now come to a time when the enthusiasm peculiar to the early period has passed, when with the coming of a new genera- tion this service must go on by the forces born of a fixed conviction and a consecration of unques- tioning faith — a time of patient work, steady giving, and constant praying. It is in this last decade of the history of our Southern work that we trace more evidently the conflicting thought of the white people of the South as to the attitude which should be main- tained towards the emancipated race. The prophets and seers, the apostles of a day of right- eousness towards all classes and conditions of men, began during this period to find a growing resistance to their appeals for human rights. The appreciation which the work for the elevation of the negro was gaining from large-minded and thoughtful people in the South was the hopeful and cheering feature, but the increasing expres- sions of opposition gave concern for the future. So far as the results of thirty years were consid- ered there was every encouragement. Beyond question, the hopes of the fathers had been more 2 53 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION than justified in those who had gone forth from schools and churches to take to others the bless- ings which they had received. But it was increas- ingly evident that this very success of those edu- cated in the higher institutions of the South for colored people excited the hostility of a large class of white people, and did not win the favor of an- other large and influential class. This spirit which was unsympathetic combined with that which was hostile, while it occasioned both regret and anxiety, brought no change of our purpose and no thought of relaxing our efforts. We have come to a time when the transitional phase of the colored people has become particu- larly marked. Not only those who were supposed to be practically permanent in rural districts, but also those who had flocked to the large towns and cities are coming and going. The tendency to drift into cities, due in part to the better school facilities which the cities afford, presents impor- tant educational and evangelistic suggestions. Under conditions which make for unrest in rural sections, localities which at one time appeal for help at a later date appear to be well-nigh deserted. This seldom affects happily located schools to any great degree, inasmuch as there are more who wish to attend them than can well be cared for. 254 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION The transitional conditions, however, are more likely to add to the uncertainty of life and growth of rural churches, and make the problem of evan- gelization among those who greatly need it in- creasingly difficult and sometimes disappointing. Added to the fact that our more sober methods of church life and our insistence upon purity and Christian integrity demand an intelligence and elevation of character seldom realized apart from permanent educational influences, we find that the growth of hopeful churches resembles the oak, which asks time for root and branches rather than the cotton-plant with its quick and short life. But with the constant leaven of education our ideas and ideals are becoming better known to the younger generation, and we may hope for a safe and healthful increase of churches like those which have already proved their vitality, and which in many places are exerting positive Chris- tian influence. We accentuate the fact, therefore, that the mere statistics of evangelism which ap- pear under the caption of " Church Work " do not at all adequately represent the leavening power of the gospel, which is constantly and widely felt among the colored people. The lead- ing and example of consecrated teachers day by day in their close relationships with life when character is forming and is most susceptible, make 255 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION our schools like our churches, centers of redemp- tive power. This period was particularly memorable in the reception by the Association of the largest gift from a living contributor ever made, up to that time, to a missionary society. The writer well recalls the day in October, 1888, when the Hon. Luzon B. Morris, afterwards governor of Connecticut, the trusted legal and financial ad- viser of Daniel Hand of Guilford, entered the office to transfer securities to the amount of " one million eight hundred and ninety-four dollars and twenty-five cents," to be designated " The Daniel Hand Educational Fund for Colored People." The gift was one of mature delibera- tion, made after careful examination of the work of the Association extending through a period of many years ; made during the lifetime it avoided the possibility of future litigation. It was be- stowed upon a race with whose wants Mr. Hand had become thoroughly conversant. It was given to a society with whose history, amid obloquy and distrust, he was perfectly familiar, and it was made a permanent fund, — the income only to be available, — thus insuring its perpetual useful- ness. The generous giver, formerly a merchant in the South, had acquired his fortune there, and personally knew of the ignorance and needs of 256 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION the colored people. The Deed of Trust was as follows : THE DEED OF TRUST Memorandum of Agreement made this 20th day of October, a. d., 1888, between Daniel Hand of Guilford, in the State of Connecticut, and the American Missionary Association of the city, county, and State of New York. The said Daniel Hand, desiring to establish a permanent fund, the income of which shall be used for the purpose of educating needy and indi- gent colored people of African descent, residing, or who may hereafter reside in the recent slave states of the United States of America, sometimes called the Southern States ; meaning those states wherein slavery was recognized by law in the year a. d., 1861, and in consideration of the prom- ises and undertakings of the said American Mis- sionary Association, hereinafter set forth, does hereby give, transfer, and deliver unto the said American Missionary Association the following bonds and property in trust, viz.: [Here follows a list of the property transferred, amounting at par value to $1,000,894.25. The market value is more than that sum.] Said bonds and property to be received and held by said American Mis- sionary Association, upon trust, and for the fol- lowing purposes, viz. : To safely manage the said trust fund, to change investments whenever said Association may deem it necessary or advisable to reinvest the principal of said trust fund in such securities, property, and investments as said Association may deem best, and to use the income 17 257 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION thereof only for the education of the colored people of African descent residing in the recent slave states of the United States of America hereinbefore specified. Such income to be applied for the education of such colored people as are needy and indigent, and such as by their health, strength, and vigor of body and mind give indications of efficiency and usefulness in after life. Said American Missionary Association and the proper officers thereof shall have the right, while acting in good faith, to select from time to time such persons from the above described class as are to receive aid from the income of said trust fund, hereby confiding to said Association the selection of such persons as it shall deem most worthy and deserving of such aid, but I would limit the sum of $100 as the largest sum to be expended for any one person in any one year from this fund. I impose no restrictions upon said Association as to the manner in which they shall use such income for the education of such colored people, whether by establishing schools for that purpose, and maintaining the same, or by furnishing individual aid; trusting to said Association and the officers thereof the use of such means in the execution of said trust as in their judgment will be most for the advantage of that class of people. Said trust fund shall be set apart, and at all times known as the " Daniel Hand Educational Fund for Colored People." And the said Asso- ciation shall keep separate accounts of the invest- ment of this fund, and of the income derived therefrom, and of the use to which such income is 258 -yWsJSS ' Daniel Hand EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION applied, and shall publish monthly statements of the receipts from said fund, specifying its source, object, and intention. The said American Missionary Association, acting herein by Henry W. Hubbard, its Treas- urer, and M. E. Strieby, its Corresponding Sec- retary, who are duly authorized by said Associ- ation to accept the foregoing gift, in trust, in the name of the Association, hereby accepts the same subject to all the conditions hereinbefore imposed thereon, and hereby agrees to perform said trust, and execute all the duties thereof in good faith, so as to carry out the wishes and intentions of the grantor. And the said American Missionary Association hereby acknowledges the receipt from said Daniel Hand of the above-mentioned bonds and property, in trust, and for the purposes here- inbefore specified. The giver of this noble fund died December 17th, 1 89 1. He had lived to see in some measure the working of his great bestowment, and to give frequent expression of absolute confidence in the Association, and his gratitude that God had spared him to behold the beginning of his mag- nificent charity. It was found that in his will, after having made such provision for his dis- tant relatives as seemed wise to him, he had added to his munificent trust the residue of his fortune, making the Association his residuary legatee to the amount of more than another half million of dollars. 259 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Daniel Hand was born in Madison, Connecti- cut, July 1 6, 1 80 1, and was therefore ninety years of age at the time of his death. His an- cestors had resided in that town for several gen- erations. He was the fourth of seven sons, sur- viving them all. When sixteen years of age he went to Augusta, Georgia, under the direction of his second brother residing there, whom he succeeded in business. Mr. Hand remained in some part of the Southern Confederacy during the entire war. His partner, Mr. George W. Williams, who was conducting a branch of the business at Charleston, South Carolina, protected the capital of Mr. Hand from the confiscation seriously threatened, in view of his being a North- ern man of undisguised antislavery sentiments. After the war, when Mr. Hand came North, Mr. Williams adjusted the business, made up the account, and paid over to Mr. Hand his portion of the long-invested capital and its accumula- tions, as an honorable merchant and trusted partner would do. Bereaved of wife and chil- dren for many years, his benevolent impulses led Mr. Hand to form plans to use his large wealth for the benefit of his fellow men. He was a man of striking presence, of strong mind and strong convictions, earnest in his modes of thought and vigorous and terse in their expression. His reli- 260 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION gious life and character were formed upon the model and under the influence of his Puritan ancestors. Uniting with the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, when twenty-eight years of age, for thirty years he presided over its Sunday-school as its superintendent. In his old age, as he laid his hand upon his well-worn Bible, he said, " I always read from that book every morning, and have done so from my boyhood except in comparatively few cases of unusual in- terruption or special hindrance." Such being the man, his splendid philanthropy is a natural se- quence. It is well to hold his honored name and his benefactions in lasting gratitude. From 1886 there is a record of great enlarge- ment, twenty-one advanced schools having been added to those previously existing. The additions of those of normal grade were one in Virginia, five in Georgia, one in Florida, four in Alabama, six in Tennessee, two in Kentucky, one in Missis- sippi, and one in Arkansas. This was in part made possible through the gift of Daniel Hand. The number of schools developed through the Daniel Hand fund was fourteen, which in 1892 had increased to twenty-eight. Most of them had enlarged their teaching forces and had ad- vanced their standards of instruction. Meanwhile, Christian education in school and 261 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION church is finding its justification and encourage- ment in the gradually changing life of the colored people. The slave is becoming a memory. The religious " spirituals " are giving way to " Gos- pel Hymns " ; there is an evident gain upon superstition; the ideas of liberty and manhood are being better understood ; increasing numbers of educated young men and women are proving their culture and their powers in helping to teach and uplift the unfortunate ones of their race still in ignorance and degradation. There is a steady gain upon the great mass of those unreached by any of the Christianizing agencies. These de- graded ones are many, and their condition fur- nishes critics with their assertions that the entire race is deteriorating. This is not true. As a race the colored people are surely rising. There are more good homes. There is acquisition of property. Many are accumulating wealth. It is this evident development, indeed, that is pro- ducing a ferment at the South which our records at this time particularly recognize. As the race, no longer enslaved, grows in self-consciousness and takes on a worthy ambition, the antagonisms of those who are unfriendly become more pro- nounced. It is the advancement, indeed, of the negro which excites unrest in those hostile to his progress. This, no doubt, is a necessary process, 262 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION taking people as they are, and human nature being what it is. All transitional periods in indi- viduals and in peoples are trying, both to those who are passing out of one stage into another and to those who have to bear with the experience ! The situation in many parts of the South can- not be better outlined than by the following pas- sage written by a colored pastor: As you know, we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle to secure protection of life and property against mob violence and lynch law. We are trying to arouse a righteous public sentiment throughout the South and to bring about the passage of stronger and better laws. Yet when laws are passed, the work will only be begun. The social chaos of the South is due to the moral chaos. So long as one race is strong and wicked and the other weak and wicked mobs and lynch- ings will continue. The conditions at this period which confronted the Association find expression in an " Appeal of the colored people of the United States," in these words : We pray for patience, which, counting the blessings we enjoy rather than the ills we endure, inspires us to bear and forbear. We pray for wisdom to decide be- tween the good and the evil side, for race integrity. We pray not only for ourselves; we pray for the civilization which, after two thousand years of Chris- 263 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tian teaching, exults in deeds which would bring to the cheek of barbarism the blush of shame. We appeal to the intelligence and fairness of the American people to extend to colored citizens of the Republic the same rights, privileges, and immunities that are extended to foreigners for the asking. We appeal to the civiliza- tion of the world for that human sympathy which our unfortunate position warrants; also for that whole- some interest which of itself will tend to check law- lessness and make effective our rights of citizenship. The response to such pathetic appeals on the part of the Association may be seen in its utter- ances at this time. Said Dr. Charles H. Rich- ards, then of Philadelphia, at our Annual Meet- ing in Lowell, Massachusetts : There is a new South coming to the front. If I had the ear of that better South to-day I would say to it, " Here is your glorious opportunity. It is for you to bring to bear upon this vast element of danger such influences as will change it into immeasurable help and blessing to the South and to the world. And how can you do this? Can you do it by robbing the negro of those rights which the common law of our country has solemnly declared to be his? Can you do it by lynching him ? A thousand negroes in the South have suffered death by this lawless and barbarous method within the past ten years, many entirely inno- cent of the crime of which they were accused. . . . Put away the coward fear of negro equality. Prevent this not by keeping the black man down, but by con- 264 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION stantly rising - higher yourselves. Nobody can catch up with you if you only keep far enough ahead. The salvation of the South is the salvation of the black race in the South. We would aid you in this great work. Welcome us as your fellow laborers." Dr. Lyman Abbott voiced the sentiments of the Association in the Annual Meeting in Boston : It means the same kind of law for the black man that there is for a white man. We protest against the heathen barbarism that hangs a white man for a crime after trial and burns a black man for crime without trial. . . . We claim for him equal political rights. The law which says to a thrifty negro, " You shall not vote," and to a thriftless white man, " You may vote," is an unjust and inequitable law. The law which provides one kind of educational qualification for this man because his skin is tanned and another for that man because his skin is not tanned is an unjust and inequitable law. We stand, too, for this, that all the redemptive influences which have been about us shall be about them ; that they shall have the same educational and religious facilities and the same stim- ulus to intellectual and moral growth. Any scheme of education which proposes to furnish the negro race only with manual and industrial education is a covert contrivance for putting him in serfdom; it tacitly says that the negro is the inferior of the white race, and therefore we will educate him to serve us. The race must have an education which in its final outcome shall be complete for the race as a race, which shall include the curriculum of education, and which shall 265 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION open opportunities for the highest culture of which any individual of that race is capable. I stop a moment to speak with reverence to those who in the last quarter of a century under the auspices of this and similar societies have been carrying on this work in the South. These workers in our South- ern fields better illustrate and exemplify incarnation and atonement than any words of preacher ever have done. If ever in human history there was a body of men and women who have felt the breath of the Master on them, and heard his word, saying, " As the Father hath sent me into the world even so send I you," it is these men and women whose lives have been lives of long self-sacrifice, prosaic service unhonored and unsung of men, but not unhonored nor unsung above. Such testimonials, which might be multiplied at length, are the answer of the Association to the appeals of the colored people, and they are the answer to those who through the reiteration of those hostile in the South were continually insist- ing that the work of educating the children of the freedmen has been one of mistaken benevolence. Those who are looking chiefly at the degradation of the colored people not yet raised from their low estate, and at the evils which attend upon degra- dation, are asked to remember that empty minds have neither within themselves nor in their en- vironment protection against evil, and that the degradation is not because the race is losing 266 EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION ground once possessed. The condition of those still submerged is simply made more apparent because the race is gaining. In slavery when all were down in the bogs together, the race had no element of comparison, but now when the stand- ards of the race are higher, the contrast is strik- ing, and the condition of the residuum is not evidence that the race is deteriorating. There are those who judge the entire negro race by five per cent of degenerates out of the ninety-five per cent of the ignorant half. The truer judgment looks at the fifty-six per cent of the entire race that have been upraised to a worthy moral and intellectual condition, and have within a genera- tion attained a degree of material thrift and pure life, and a general regard for law and order that will not suffer in comparison with the attainments of similar white people North or South. It was permitted to Dr. Strieby to live to hear such testimonials and to recall the days when few of those who were prominent were able to see their way to cast their influence for a society which courageously stood for human rights and brotherhood when these were thought to be the idle speculations of impracticable dreamers. Dr. Strieby entered the service of the Association as Corresponding Secretary 267 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION with Dr. Whipple in 1864, when he was forty- nine years of age. After graduation from Oberlin College and Seminary, he was pastor at Mt. Ver- non, Ohio, for eleven years. He next organized the church at Syracuse, New York, and, as at Mt. Vernon, proved his ability as a pastor and preacher. But his larger work was accomplished after middle life. No one can measure his influ- ence in the development of the work of the Asso- ciation during his secretaryship of thirty-five years. He had a prophet's look beyond the work of the hour, and saw the relation of things. His convictions were realities and he had the grace to hold them firmly. Often misunderstood and criticized, he was more sorry for his critics than angry with them, and in the stormiest sea his attitude of mind was, " You may sink me if you will, but I will keep my rudder true." Not anxious for praise, he was not afraid of blame when he felt that he was right. He could wait for the justification of time, which sets all things even, and he never doubted that clouds would break, never thought, though right were worsted, that wrong would triumph. He was too much of a prophet to be a time-server or to trim for any temporary advantage. Not many men of all the nation were doing more for the country than he in administering upon the broad schemes for the 268 Secretary M. E. Strieby, D.D. EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION Christian education and evangelization of the ignorant and needy peoples to whom he had de- voted his life. When he died at Clifton Springs, New York, March 16, 1899, there was no lack of testimony to the wisdom and greatness of his accomplished work. As the years progress, they differentiate mainly in the necessary and varying problems of admin- istration and development — problems never free from difficulties, and sometimes large with dis- couragements, but always marked by a conscien- tious performance of a constant purpose. The words of Rev. C. A. Patton, d.d., of St. Louis, Missouri, son of the early champion of the Association in its brave beginnings, are well chosen as he reviewed the years and their con- clusions : I thank God for the American Missionary Associ- ation. Through all these years it has anchored us to the conception of a universal brotherhood. Some churches have cared nothing for these things. Some have openly advocated the disruption of the races in the very house of the Lord. We have stood firm ; we have refused to lower our standards a hair's breadth under the pressure of prejudice or expediency. Please God, we never shall. This Association stands su- premely for the highest ideal of humanity; we believe it with all our souls. We are confident of its increas- ing success. Our progress may be slow, for the ten- 269 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION dencies we combat are as old and as mighty as human wrong, but the result is sure. It matters not if we meet with indifference, criticism, or opposition; the cause is the cause of humanity and has behind it the eternal purpose of God. 270 XIV SURVEY AND OUTLOOK Contrasts : Hampton Institute as it was and is. — Atlanta University. — Berea College. — Fisk University. — Talladega College. — Tougaloo University. — Straight University. — Tillotson College. — Piedmont College. — Normal and graded schools. — Large development. — Illustration of extending influence. — Theological school at Atlanta. — Hopeful sympathy in the South. — Adverse sentiment. — Other agencies. — Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Prot- estant Episcopal, Friends. — Independent schools. — North- ern philanthropy discounted. — Reply of Kelly Miller. — Testimony of Dr. Curry. — Evidence of negro progress. — Dr. Talcott Williams' comparison of the negro and serf. — The social study of the negro churches. — Our denominational influence. — Retrospect and prospect. XIV SURVEY AND OUTLOOK THE passing of threescore years has re- moved those who organized the Associ- ation and most of those who remember its feeble beginnings. During twoscore of these years its energies have been chiefly directed to the greatest problem of the country, the develop- ment and reconstruction of a race which began absolutely with nothing as it came out of the tyrannies and irresponsibilities of slavery. The Association also began with nothing except strong convictions and great faith. After this period of time, as we now survey the fields, there is abundant reason for gratitude to God and to his people. Between 1846 and 1906 there are great contrasts. The little school at Hampton, Virginia, which grew and became great under the brilliant genius of General Arm- strong, perpetuated by the wise guidance of his distinguished successor, has won as an inde- pendent institution the national fame which it richly deserves. 18 273 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Atlanta University, also a child of the Associ- ation which has come to self-provision, has been no small factor in the problem of the redemption and regeneration of a race. Berea College, still another child of the Associ- ation with a like early history, helped through its hard struggles for life and power to stand alone, rejoices in its successful ability to work out the prayer of its heroic pioneer educators, and to realize in its great mission the dreams of those who had faith in the promises, " having seen them afar off." Of the institutions now under the Association's watch and care, Fisk University stands promi- nent with its long list of college graduates, men and women, many of whom having achieved dis- tinction in the higher callings of life, have re- flected honor upon their college and upon their race. Talladega College, next in order of time, drew its first breath of life in 1867; and there are no scales now large enough to weigh the com- manding influences, intellectual and religious, which have gone forth to uplift and upbuild the tens of thousands who have felt its power. Tougaloo University, in the center of the Black Belt of Mississippi, wins from eminent white citi- zens of the state the highest testimonials and the 274 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK fullest sympathy. One of its most distinguished citizens writes : " I rejoice in the missionary zeal, born of the Holy Spirit, which has sent so many cultured and consecrated men and women to labor among the negroes of the South. I live within a few miles of Tougaloo University; I believe it to be possibly the most potential factor in developing the negroes of our state for the higher functions of useful citizenship. I can but applaud the wise policy you have adopted and the splendid efficiency of your administration." Straight University in New Orleans in thirty years of its history, sending out large numbers of well-prepared teachers for public schools and devoted pastors for churches, has not only en- couraged a spirit of kindliness and confidence between the races where this was greatly needed, but has often been held up before Southern citizens by Southern educators as an exam- ple of what an institution of the kind should be. Its graduates scattered throughout this sec- tion of the South are found in all the trades and professions. Tillotson College in Texas, younger and less prominent, has not failed to place its permanent impress upon that great state. Those of its stu- dents who have had their ambitions stirred to seek the larger advantages of New England col- 275 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION leges have won laurels for scholarship and have placed themselves high in the ranks of acknowl- edged ability. Piedmont College in Georgia, our latest acces- sion of advanced institutions, in answer to ap- peals from our white brethren in those Southern states which were the scene of our exciting mis- sionary experiences before the war, is extending Christian education among the people of the highlands and the lowlands, and cementing the friendships of those who were strangers and who accounted us as foreigners. Through institu- tions such as these, we " are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints," at least, and with many who may not strictly be so classified. One of the most interesting schools of the Asso- ciation was organized in the fall of 1895 through the large benevolence of Mrs. Julia A. Brick of Brooklyn, New York. Her gift of a beauti- ful plantation of one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine acres with several fine buildings thereon, gave the name to the institution, in honor of her deceased husband. The Joseph Keasbey Brick Agricultural, Industrial and Normal School is situated three miles from Enfield, North Caro- lina, on the Atlantic Coast Line. The fourteen years' history and growth of the school have al- 276 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK ready realized in large measure her dream to ameliorate the sad conditions which existed when Mrs. Brick made her large bestowments to this work. No more fitting monument could have been built to the memory of her husband than this splendid school. Within the past twenty years, while our work has been that of concentration, the Association has increased its normal and graded schools from fourteen to forty-four, its corps of instructors from 218 to 476, and the pupils under instruction from 8,462 to 14,429. Within this time the higher grades in the schools have enlarged them- selves from 2,348 to 5,580. The teachers a score of years ago who had college degrees were twenty- two. There were in 1906, 136 graduates of col- leges teaching in our various institutions. The construction of buildings in this period for educa- tional purposes is represented by an additional insurance of more than half a million dollars. These statistics of present conditions, encour- aging as they are, by no means represent the full achievements of faith, nor adequately measure the work and influences of a single score of years. The benevolences of the churches and the legacies of those who have remembered the salvation and amelioration of the neglected peoples who have needed help for the way of life, have kept the 277 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Association in the front rank of all the agencies for this missionary work. As an illustration of the way in which these schools extend their influences, a single incident may be mentioned. Two officers of the Associa- tion on a recent tour of inspection in the South visited the State Normal Industrial College for the education of colored youth in North Carolina. The president of this state institution received them with cordial welcome, the more expressive because he had " been educated in one of the Association's schools." Passing to the next room, the teacher informed the visitors that she was " a product of the American Missionary schools." At the head of the mechanical depart- ment was an able director who gratified them by saying that he also had " received his prepara- tory education in one of the schools of the Associ- ation." Thus, three of the heads of departments, including the president, were passing on the work of the Association to others — a single instance among hundreds who have gone out from the schools of the Association with acquired power and new ambitions to help build up other South- ern institutions. Among the latest responsibilities assumed in the South is the experiment of a theological school located in Atlanta, Georgia. Our subven- 278 Beard Hall, Joseph K. Brick School, Enfield, N. C. Chapel, Joseph K. Brick School, Enfield, N. C. SURVEY AND OUTLOOK tion to this, it is hoped, will bring large results in the ministry of reconciliation among the people who are in Georgia. The Association has been greatly encouraged in its work by helpful sympathy which the years have brought in the communities where our insti- tutions are located. It was natural that when our work began it should be looked upon with sus- picion. The wounds of the Civil War were not over, much less healed. In order to lift the lowly the teachers felt that they must not hesitate to take the black hand with the grasp of Christ ; they must stand with those whom they were seeking to save; they must help the people in their rude homes and teach them how to live; the poverty and the barrenness must feel the elevating touch not only of pity but also of sympathy. Those who looked upon this kind of consecration and did not understand it could have no other feel- ing than that of apprehension. The distrust of motives was natural. The fear of " social equal- ity " was ever present. The traditional ideas as to a servile race, the relationships to social en- vironment together with the keen sense of great material losses all stood in the way of apprecia- tion and of cooperation. But as the years have passed and the fruitage of the early planting has ripened, the spirit of the mission has been better 279 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION comprehended and the larger-minded and wider- visioned have been able to readjust their feelings and opinions. Many have come to be in cordial cooperation with the Association, some as trus- tees of institutions and others as friendly visitors. The brave example of the wise men in the South who stand for the education and elevation of the negro is most grateful to the Association which has had this service upon its heart for half a century. It appreciates the moral courage and purpose of those who thus put prejudices aside in behalf of the needs of a less fortunate race, and who are resolute enough to plead with outspoken sympathy for its welfare in the face of an ad- verse sentiment increasingly popular among the masses and cruelly dominant. The assertion in the South, yet too common, that it " understands the negro question," and if " let alone " will settle it for itself, proceeds upon the supposition that a certain element in the South speaks for all of it. It takes little account of those larger in mind and heart, and wiser in thought but less numerous, while it dismisses from any consideration whatever a South of nine millions of souls which have human rights and whose personal concern for these rights has every claim to be consulted and regarded. As a mis- sionary society, born of zeal for righteousness 280 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK of the public conscience in its application to the oppressed, and working since for millions re- deemed from slavery, it would be a guilty silence for us not to lift our voices in sympathy for them in this hour. To fail in protest against the spirit and purpose which would reduce the race to the perpetual injustice of a subject state, and make their freedom a bitter mockery, would be to sin against our history. Meanwhile, we believe that the people who would disfranchise the negro and deprive him of education needed for his advance- ment to an intelligent right to citizenship will finally be found on the losing side. Their partial realization of this doubtless explains in some degree the violence of their vociferousness. As we consider the years since i860, let us not forget the other agencies which have represented the churches of Christ in the missionary work of Christian education.and evangelism. The Freed- men's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church North has a, blessed and shining record since 1866. The Presbyterian Church North, be- ginning at the same time with like theories and methods, has pursued its work with the same fun- damental purpose. The Baptist churches of the Northern states for more than thirty years have developed their schools with the best ideas of Christian educators. The Protestant Episcopal 281 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Church has added its faith and works to uplift the children of the freedmen to Christian intelli- gence and character. The Society of Friends and many independent schools have during some parts of these years supplemented this service for the salvation of a race. The American Missionary Association, which was the pioneer to feel the poverty and degrada- tion of the negro, has found with each succeed- ing year the fruitful confirmation of its faith and the wisdom of its methods in this common re- demptive work. At least fifteen millions of dol- lars have passed through its treasury to repre- sent and stand for this faith as its expression. We may not here undertake to show what are the results of those who have given their lives and of those who have thus consecrated their benevolences. It has been the fashion, mostly recent, on the part of those to whom the wish is father to the thought, to discredit the work which has been accomplished. Educated Southern men have been quoted as saying that " the money contrib- uted to negro education by Northern philan- thropy has been for the most part literally wasted." By persistent asseverations, diligently circulated assertions of this kind have gained in certain quarters considerable currency. One of 282 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK those educated through this Northern philan- thropy thus replies : " This, in the face of the fact that it was through this same Northern phi- lanthropy that one-third of the population of the entire South has received its first and chief im- pulse for better and higher life; that these insti- tutions of Northern benevolence prepared the thirty thousand negro teachers for the positions they hold in the public schools ; and that the men and women who owe all of their elevation to this same philanthropy are those who are lifting the general life to a higher level, and doing all they can do to control and restrain the ignorant and vicious masses which have as yet been unreached by like influences." These people who disparage what has been ac- complished, and who persist in judging a race by its criminal class rather than by those who nobly represent it, would not wish the white race to be subject to the same mis judgment. The problem of ignorance, laziness, brutality, and criminality surely is not confined to any race or section. Wherever it is, it can only yield to time and patient work. With patient work it does yield to time. "If," said Kelly Miller, "it takes twenty-five years to educate a white boy, it must require an incalculably larger period to educate a black race. 283 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION " We hear much of criminality. The chief evil of slavery was that the negro did not act from moral choice. When he was well-behaved, he was so upon compulsion ; when physical restraint was removed, there had been no convictive moral restraint to take its place. When freedom of action and liberty of choice came, the negro was not prepared for it, and yet the criminal average of the South Atlantic Division of states, where the colored race is densest, has by the Eleventh Census less criminals to a million people than the North Atlantic Division, and also less than the Western section, in each of which the negroes are relatively few. New York and California have a higher criminal record than Alabama and South Carolina." Alas, there is criminality! Ignorance begets crime. It remains true that without such serv- ice as Christian teachers have been giving, and are giving, millions would sink into hopeless degradation, favorable to crime. The products of the Christian schools have met every expecta- tion from the standard of character and conduct. If they have not banished all ignorance and all poverty, and obliterated all vicious tendencies, they have yet made a greater and more blessed record than words can express. A worthier testimony than that of confessed! 284 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK hostility comes "from the honored secretary and administrator of the Slater and Peabody funds, Dr. Curry, than whom there could be cited no higher authority. This eminent Southerner says: " It is absolutely necessary to both races that edu- cation should go on. As a rule the criminals among Southern negroes are not only the prod- uct of post-bellum life; they are uneducated. It is the rarest thing that an educated negro com- mits crime against virtue and life. In our ex- tremity we look to the wise and just people in the Northern states to help us, to help the race. Without Northern cooperation conditions will go from bad to worse." With all the fervor of his large knowledge, Dr. Curry gave his answer to the strange theory that Christian education is a failure in that it does not prevent crime among those who as yet are beyond its saving power. There is no criticism that will stand the tests of candid inquiry as to the character and con- duct of those who go forth from a continuous course of study and discipline of our schools. They are at work uplifting their people. They are leavening the millions of their race. That the negro people are thus contributing to solve the problem of their salvation is a fact full of cheer. A mighty army of coworkers, many of them wide-visioned and wise, are both in them- 285 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION selves and in their work confirming the faith of the fathers and the wisdom of their far-reaching methods. For the past, then, there is every reason for gratulation, and for the future there is little call for doubt. The Association has not been infal- lible. This it has never claimed, but it has been providentially led. Let it be true that the fervor of Northern philanthropy is largely over; that the higher education is challenged by many who once actively supported it; that the negro has lost his vote in the Southern states and that many Southern people insist upon the astounding propo- sition that all education is a mistake for the negro ; it remains that the Association has no reason to reconsider its principles, nor to change its gen- eral methods. The results show that they have everywhere been a saving grace and a trans- forming power, a grand and fruitful investment with wonderful returns in character and in life. They have made thousands of good homes out of poor cabins and hundreds of good churches out of superstitious congregations. They have stimulated the virtues of industry and economy. They have successfully taught that character means advancement in life and in possessions. The evidences are to be seen in every town and village in the South. 286 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK The Association looks out upon a negro popu- lation to-day of more than nine million. These are estimated to hold more than $400,000,000 of property or two-thirds as much as was held by nine million of whites in this country a century ago. The Association sees the negro people to-day operating thirteen per cent of the whole number of farms in the United States and thirty- seven per cent of the farms in the Southern states. The continued development of the race for forty years is simply phenomenal. At the same time, it is true that nearly one- half of the race is yet in deplorable ignorance. Among these are the shiftless and indolent with a low mental and moral life. From these the criminal class is recruited. Among these are the idlers who are seen in the streets and about the saloons of white men, clad in ragged gar- ments and covered with impossible head-gear. People do not see, unless they look for them, those who are not idling, those who are doing honest work with steady industry, those who have been quickened with ambition to improve, those who are teaching others, those who are making great sacrifices to keep their children in school. But because there is an idle residuum who will work only enough to maintain an impoverished exist- ence, there are those ready to pronounce all forms 287 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION of education failures. It is intellectual and spir- itual ignorance which interprets itself in indus- trial inefficiency. An authority no less than Dr. Talcott Wil- liams has repeatedly testified that in the con- sistent application of an impartial Christian civili- zation the Association has proved itself to have possessed and used the true social remedy for the development and salvation of an undeveloped race. " Granted," he says, " that the negro race re- quires an industrial training and natural selec- tion, the negro must be provided with higher edu- cation which will prevent him from being a mere stratum at the base of industry. " If the negro group is to be more than a caste, it must develop its aim, its aspirations, and its future by the aid of a wide training which puts it in touch with the past, and this training must be at hand close to the negro population. " Neither college nor industrial training can be spared. If the republic is at length to fuse and assimilate all within its sovereignty, it can only be as all enjoy the possibility of every advan- tage open to any. The final object of all Ameri- can efTort is a more perfect union, and can only come by closing no door to any man. " The negro came of a race which had never m SURVEY AND OUTLOOK known letters. The serf came of a stock which had inherited the learning of the Byzantine em- pire. Forty years have passed. Among the serfs not one in ten can read and write; not one child in fourteen is attending school. Only three per cent of the population — three out of every hun- dred — enter a schoolroom from year's end to year's end. The negro began environed with statutes which made his education a crime. After forty years fifty-five per cent of this adult popula- tion can read and write, where of the Russian serf seventy per cent are still illiterate. Thirty- five per cent of his population against three per cent of the Russian are at school ; and of his chil- dren, not one in fourteen, but two, are regularly attending their classes. The gate of all higher education is closed to the serf by administrative order. Two thousand negroes, many of them owing their education to this Association, have taken their college degrees. There is much to discourage, doubtless, in the condition of the American negro, but when I remember the prog- ress made by four million negroes in the United States, I feel more strongly that freedom is jus- tified of her children, whatever their color, and that the experience of the past is the just enlarg- ing hope of the future." In the " Social Study of the Negro Church," »9 289 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION under the direction of the Eighth Atlanta Con- ference, the religious condition of the children of the freedmen in their various communions is carefully examined. As to the general character of the churches and preachers, there is yet much to be desired. Inquiry by correspondence of some two hundred negro laymen of intelligence in all parts of the South with a schedule of questions indicated a great crying need of religious effort and moral aspiration among the masses of the colored people — the need of an earnest, educated, and consecrated ministry. On the whole, the older type of preachers is gradually passing, and the churches more and more are demanding posi- tive Christian character and intelligent leader- ship. This process of emancipation from the old order of ignorant and often morally unfit preachers is going on largely under the leader- ship of educated and godly men from the mis- sionary schools. In our own Congregational affiliation the churches are both few and small in comparison with the great number of negro churches. Requiring first of all the reality of Christian life and experience, and standing for high religious, moral, and intellectual aims, as against the heritage of superstitions and the errors of ignorance, the growth necessarily has been slow, and the influence has been that of the 290 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK leaven in the lump rather than of outward obser- vation. The majority of churches which bear the Congregational name are only partly self- supporting, but there are several whose member- ship presents a very high average of intelligence, and are not only self-supporting, but are exercis- ing the grace of Christian benevolence and serv- ice in behalf of missions both at home and in for- eign lands. The next generation will see the negro churches of the South exerting a stronger religious and moral influence upon the negro race than they are visibly doing to-day. Our brethren of other communions found a natural constituency among the negro people who bore their denominational name, and who only needed to be brought into an enlightened appre- ciation of its meaning. The Association did not. The Congregational name was new, and by the .great multitude interpreted as a new religion. Nevertheless, more than two hundred Congrega- tional churches live to plead for an ethical reli- gion, and for a Christianity which means purity and character. Intelligent preachers have dis- placed the ignorant and boisterous, and the gos- pel, proclaimed by ministers whose minds have been enlarged by the discipline of the schools and expanded by a knowledge of the world's life and thought, is doing much towards an intelligent 291 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION apprehension of Christianity and the significance of the ministry of Christ. A large part of the justification of our church life among the negro people is in its leavening influence in other de- nominations, and in their steadfast example for purity and integrity. Looking backward, then, for sixty years, the Association can take up the song of the Psalmist who in reviewing the past of his people, and recognizing the good hand of God, was impelled to say, " He led them forth by the right way." It was in the current of God's gracious providence that the Association was brought into life. Its early years of struggle and ofttimes of apparent defeat were the days of its education and testing. When the fiery trial of war came, the accumulated strength of a patient overcoming was a posses- sion that enabled it to take up the great work of the redemption of a race without hesitation or delay. Since that time the providence of God has been a continuous providence, and if the work of redemption to any seems to have moved for- ward less rapidly than they hoped, we may re- member that the logic of evolution is not less con- clusive for reasoning slowly. What God in his purposes may have in store for the people whom his providence brought from the jungles of Africa and whom his providence emancipated, 292 SURVEY AND OUTLOOK we cannot know until his providence shall have ripened. This much we have learned, that God has overturned the purposes of man. When men proposed to make the chains of the enslaved stronger, God snapped them. Enough has already been concluded to give us a pledge of God's purposes that he intends this people at least to be really and truly free, and to have their own opportunity for manhood and womanhood. That which has been settled in heaven will not be unsettled on earth. On man's part possession must wait upon preparedness. It is a salvation which must be worked out with fear and trem- bling. As to time, this salvation will move on with the movement of Christianity and the power of Christian faith in our land. Those who are working together with God are engaged in that which is assured. There is no uncertainty as to the final result. There may be opportunities, hin- drances, and what to us are discouraging delays, but He who came to " bring forth judgment unto truth shall not fail nor be discouraged." With the same faith, fortified by the fact that God has been mindful of us in our mission for the children of slavery, we apply ourselves to the appeals of our brethren of the Indian tribes on the reservations of the West, to the Chinese and Japanese thronging our ports on the Pacific, to 293 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION the neglected souls, dwellers in our insular pos- sessions, to the poor and degraded Eskimos of the North. To the needy peoples under the shel- ter of the flag of our country God has called the Association with an unmistakable voice. In the light of our experience the way before us is plain. Our commission to preach the gospel to the poor, and to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovery of sight to the blind, remains the same as afore- time. We may well keep on believing in the certainty of the kingdom of our Lord and re- joicing that " all things are given unto his hand." 294 XV IN NORTHERN ALASKA, PORTO RICO, HAWAII Northern Alaska : — Arrival of two missionaries at Cape Prince of Wales in Northern Alaska, July 4, 1890. — Mr. Thornton and Mr. Lopp. — A dwelling-house erected and also a school building. — Condition of the Eskimos. — The introduction of reindeer by Dr. Sheldon Jackson. — Marriage of Mr. Thornton and also of Mr. Lopp. — The murder of Mr. Thornton in August, 1891. — The rescue of sailors by the heroic service of Mr. Lopp. — The methods of reindeer administration. — The result of fourteen years' missionary ministry. — One hun- dred church-members, one mission school. — The pres- ent condition of the Eskimos. — A new order of life. Porto Rico : — Condition of the Island when visited by the officers of the Association. — Work begun. — Schools at Lares and Santurce. — Evangelistic work. — Transfer of school at Lares to the Presbyterian Mission. — School at Santurce takes name of " Blanche Kellogg Institute." — Evangelistic work in Fajardo. — Church edifices erected. — Six churches organized. — Great encouragements. Hawaii : — Withdrawal of American Board. — Incom- ing of foreigners from Asia. — Mission taken by the As- sociation. — The urgent appeal of the President of the Association. XV IN NORTHERN ALASKA, PORTO RICO, HAWAII NORTHERN ALASKA IN the summer of 1890 two young men at the suggestion of Dr. Sheldon Jackson and at the call of The American Missionary Associ- ation, left San Francisco on a whaling vessel to establish a new mission among the Eskimos in Northern Alaska. Mr. Thornton was from Vir- ginia and Mr. Lopp from Indiana. On the fourth of July they arrived at Cape Prince of Wales, the farthest western point on the North American continent. They knew nothing of the people, who had been described as a savage and hostile race. Within ten days they had so far put together the building which they had brought with them that they could shelter themselves. The vessel sailed away, and they were then left in a settlement of about five hundred Eskimos. Another frame building was soon erected for a school. The natives had never before seen a house, and began hammering away at the doors and win- 297 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION dows, for they had no idea that they should be kept out. The missionaries, by means of the few words they had learned, and by signs, did their best to pacify them. They continued, however, to batter at the doors for several days, but this was found to be simply a matter of curiosity. The Eskimos were really disposed to be friendly in- stead of being hostile. Within a short time the missionaries had no fears of violence from them, and soon they had gathered a school of some sixty pupils. They found the people with only their spoken language and with no positive ideas of God or of a future life, and no religious observances. The only danger from Eskimos was due to their intoxication when they could barter skins for whisky with sailors from our ships. When under the influence of drink the people became boisterous and rude and sometimes violent, and there were stormy times. " We were determined, however," wrote the missionaries, " not to let the natives see that we were afraid of them; so we taught our school, took our exercise, and went hunting our fresh meat as usual, finding it much more tolerable to take some risks than worry ourselves with constant thoughts of danger." Gradually the natives, as they came to under- stand the teachers, behaved more peaceably. 298 IN NORTHERN ALASKA During the autumn the troubles of the mis- sionaries were complicated by a terrible epidemic of pneumonia which carried off many of the people. The superstitious Eskimos attributed this epidemic to the presence of strange mission- aries. It was really due to a cold west storm which came on as the people were preparing to move from their summer tents to their under- ground houses for the winter. The mission prospered, nevertheless, and the school was largely increased in numbers, despite annoyances by children and adults clambering on the roof of the house, knocking on the walls and yelling at the windows. When it was found that these disturbances could be much reduced by suspending the school for a few days, good order was restored. As soon as the missionaries had attained suffi- cient knowledge of the language they began specific religious services. They found that the natives believed, in a vague way, in good and evil spirits — about as children believe in ghosts — but they proved to be receptive of the binding obligations of truthfulness, honesty, and other Christian virtues. The natives were living ten months of the year in underground houses, often damp, always ill- ventilated and ill-lighted, but their open-air 299 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION exercise in hunting and fishing kept them, upon the whole, stout and hardy and healthy. With- out chairs or tables, they ate with their fingers from wooden dishes, sitting on the floor. Their cooking consisted in boiling alone, without other condiment than a little sea-water. Their dress was mainly of deerskins and sealskins. Inasmuch as these could not be washed, they were always infested with vermin. The missionaries early undertook to introduce houses made with drift-logs, and to improve the condition of the people by bringing better appli- ances for fishing and hunting which secured their livelihood. They dressed themselves in seal- skins and deerskins in the Eskimo way, and really suffered but little more from the cold than when at home. Hunting with the natives, they found them to be persevering and courageous. In 1892 Dr. Sheldon Jackson with statesman- like foresight secured an appropriation for intro- ducing reindeer from Siberia into Alaska as a food supply and a means of enabling the natives to become more and more a pastoral people. This nearly seemed to be the only hope of their con- tinued existence, for supplies of food were not only precarious but also decreasing. The intro- duction of reindeer by Dr. Jackson was a pro- phetic movement for the civilization of the Eski- 300 IN NORTHERN ALASKA mos. The wisdom of this action cannot be too highly appreciated. It has not only brought them better food and more of it, but has led to new ideas of industrial life. Our mission has found large value in many ways in the reindeer herds. At the present time there are more than five thou- sand reindeer distributed in various centers in Alaska. The largest herd in Alaska is in charge of the mission of The American Missionary Asso- ciation at Cape Prince of Wales. In 1892 our missionaries reported a slow but unmistakable growth among the Eskimos in the apprehension of civilized ideas and of godliness. The Sunday church services were well attended. In short, the old superstitions were slowly be- ginning to give way. The idea that the school bell frightened away the seals was put aside. The chief magic doctor, who stabbed himself in order to secure a good whaling season, found less con- fidence on the part of the people. On August 19 of the next year Mr. Thornton — who in the meantime had returned to New York, married, and taken his wife to the mission station, as had also Mr. Lopp — was awakened about midnight by loud raps at the door. Going to the door with the idea that some one was sick and needed medicine, he was shot dead by three natives, who were probably crazed by drink. 301 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION Mrs. Thornton wrote afterwards : " We did not fear the people when they were sober, but when they were drunk we felt the peril." In the morn- ing the friendly Eskimos came and lifted the body of her murdered husband to a couch, and then carried the terrible news to the settlement. The natives at once went out, hunted down the mur- derers, killed them, and dragged their bodies up to the house, insisting that Mrs. Thornton should come out and look at them and know that they were punished. There was great mourning in the village. Nearly the whole village came to the door. " You need not be afraid. We are friends, we will not hurt you," they said. After this tragedy Mrs. Thornton returned home to this country, and Mr. Lopp with his family continued in successful charge of the mission. One of the most noteworthy events in the his- tory of this mission was the heroic service of Mr. Lopp in the rescue of three or four hundred sailors at Point Barrow, where the crews of eight trading vessels had been frozen up in the Arctic Ocean. At the request of the government Mr. Lopp undertook to drive over the wilderness of ice the mission reindeer herd seven hundred miles for the rescue of the ice-imprisoned seamen. It was a perilous journey, and even the Eskimos 302 IN NORTHERN ALASKA predicted he could never reach his destination. " It was a great trial," he wrote, " but we knew we would be remembered at the weekly prayer- meeting of our Eskimo Christians." He was successful in his endeavor, and later on the gov- ernment renewed the mission herd to its former number. The method of the administration of the rein- deer herd has been to give yearly a certain number of the deer to those Eskimos who are sufficiently trained to take care of them. This furnishes to them and their associate friends a supply for food, for service and clothing. There are now nine separate groups owned by the Eski- mos amounting to nearly one thousand deer, while nearly six hundred other deer still remain in direct charge of the mission. This feature has contributed largely to the improvement of the people. As a result of this fourteen years' missionary ministry, there was in 1904 at the Cape a practi- cally transformed community. These Eskimos are already known all along the coast for their morals, industry, and a new spirit of enterprise. Many of them are faithful Christians. About one hundred are church-members. The mission school numbers one hundred pupils. The story of the mission is a striking illustration of the en- 3°3 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION lightening and saving power of the gospel. A printing-press given by the " Boys' Missionary Society " of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brook- lyn, has been found very useful, and some of the schoolboys have not only learned to set type but have made some rude woodcuts which indicate an undeveloped talent in this line. In 1905 the Alaska Mission at Cape Prince of Wales came under the care of Rev. James F. Cross, who had a large previous experience in Indian work upon the western reservations. He was greatly impressed with the importance of the work and of the opportunity for it. He found that with the coming of the mission, the schools, and the court, the degradation of women had nearly ceased ; that with the growing market for native products, the eager spirit of the native for religious instruction, the prospect and hope for the native Alaskan is bright. A new order of life has begun in the knowledge and acceptance of American civilization and Christianity. The visit of Dr. Jackson more than eighteen years ago, when he introduced to The American Missionary Association the proposition that it should enter upon missionary work at Cape Prince of Wales, was certainly eventful. The great good that has resulted from this visit and from his urgency in behalf of the neglected, uncivilized, and benighted 3°4 IN PORTO RICO Eskimos in this mission alone, must cause him to be regarded by these rapidly developing people as their first and greatest benefactor. The successor of Mr. Cross found the most northern Congregational church in the world with a membership numbering two hundred and sixteen people, who are living consistent Chris- tian lives. The younger people of Wales have taken on our own language with the gospel, and the mission was never more rewarding or even promising than it is to-day. History does not give us many such wonderful changes in conduct and character as is seen in this mission station in the short period of eighteen years. PORTO RICO When Porto Rico came into the family of the United States, the Association was the first to make anything like a thorough study of the islands in missionary interests. It was then in the first months of military rule under General Henry, an able administrator, earnest for civil improvements, and a Christian man who honored the Christian faith. We found a beautiful tropical country with vegetation abundant and varied, and with a soil rich beyond any signs of exhaustion. W r ith prac- 305 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION tically one season of the year for seed-time and harvest, the sowing and reaping could be done at pleasure. We found a population of nearly a million classified in round numbers as 500,000 whites, 400,000 colored — made up of a mixture of white, Indian, and negro blood — and 100,000 pure negroes. Of this million of people it was estimated that 800,000 were in absolute illiteracy, without knowledge beyond that of their own huts. One-tenth of the fraction who could read had not advanced to where they were able to write. In every town there were those who were educated and who held the responsible local positions, but who had entirely failed to realize any responsi- bility for this mass of ignorance around them. We found churches but no people in them. The Church of Spain, which for four hundred years had unhindered opportunity with the patronage of the State, so grievously failed to interpret Christianity that it had produced this fruitage. The mental and spiritual poverty were paralleled in the low-down material condition of the great body of the people. With a climate healthful and soil of great nat- ural productiveness, it would seem that the people ought to enjoy more than the ordinary blessings of life and to be easily living in com- fort. Instead, their physical condition, like their 306 IN PORTO RICO moral state, was found to be pitiful beyond expression. When this degradation came to the considera- tion of the Association, the duty appeared to be plain, since this people now belonged to us and since we belonged to them, that we must seek their salvation. Such mental and spiritual degra- dation must not continue. In accordance with this sense of duty, two schools each with several teachers were at once opened — one in the center of the island at Lares and one next the capital — on the military road in Santurce. This action was followed as speedily as possible by the beginnings of a purely evangel- istic work looking forward to the organization of churches which should stand for the truth and purity of Christian life. After years of successful work at Lares, when the government had opened an excellent school in the village, the same necessity did not seem to exist for our presence there in an educational form, and as our brethren of the Presbyterian Church were willing to assume the responsibility for evan- gelistic work at Lares the Association transferred its interests to the eastern portion of the island. The school at Santurce has been since this early beginning a center of earnest Christian influ- ence. With the Bible as one of the text-books, 307 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION it has put the lessons of Christianity into the re- ceptive life of young people year by year, and has been a blessed ministration of the gospel in the fidelities of Christian teachers. Plans have already been made for an enlarged development of this school under the name of " Blanche Kel- logg Institute," when, with increased facilities for extended and advanced work, we hope to make a large central institution as a worthy ex- pression of our faith and love. The evangelistic work of the Association, apart from that which takes the educational form, has been directed from Fajardo, a seaport upon the eastern coast. This has been crowned with the favor of God. Two tasteful and commodious church edifices have been erected. The pastor at Fajardo rejoices in the membership of a hun- dred and twenty-five who have been hopefully converted. A church at Humacao, housed in a fine building, numbers one hundred and seven members who have come out of great darkness into the light of the gospel. In all six Congrega- tional churches have been organized with four hundred and thirty members. These are most cheering figures, but they fail to represent the greatness of the blessing which has followed the endeavors of our missionaries. A census has its significance in what it stands for, but when we 308 IN HAWAII recall what the conversion of these people means — the difference between a miserable Porto Rico shack and a Christian home, the redemption from degradation to a true Christian civilization, and the ideas of life and duty which it includes and carries forward — the process of numeration falls short of the reality. What we have to encour- age is much, but as yet we have only begun to plow the ground and sow the seed. In good hope we await the response of the future to the ques- tion, " What shall the harvest be? " HAWAII Another outpost of civilization is Hawaii. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions occupied the Sandwich Islands as its first field of missionary labor in 1819. The story of the heroism and wonderful work of the early missionaries is one of the brightest pages in Christian achievement. Upon the withdrawal of the American Board, the " Hawaiian Evangelical Association " ap- pealed to The American Missionary Association for aid in carrying on the mission work in these islands. While the Hawaiians have been greatly reduced in numbers, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans have recently come in by tens of thou- 3°9 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION sands. As the native race is dying out, the Ori- entals with their paganism have hurried in. And since the islands are now a part of our country, these foreigners from Asia have for a time at least come to be members of our national family. For a time we say; we know that in time many of them will return to their former homes. They are with us now, five thousand miles nearer than the lands from which they have come. These peoples are ready for the gospel. Alert for our civilization, they are inquiring for the reasons and motives of our religious life. They will make good foreign missionaries if we suc- ceed in leading them to Christ. The call to the Association to aid in this work seemed to come with the imperative of God's own appointment. In the words of the President of the Association, " Whatever the cry from other lands, for a little time at least, this appeal of Hawaii should have no second place with those who desire the evan- gelization of the world." Let us hope that a great company of Chinese, Japanese, and Kore- ans will carry with them to the Orient the gospel and its blessings which they shall receive at our hands. 310 XVI "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" XVI "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" THE group of men who represented the Association at its beginning organized themselves for the heroic work before them with the following Executive Committee: Arthur Tappan S. E. Cornish Theo. S. Wright William H. Pillow Simeon S. Jocelyn William E. Whiting Amos A. Phelps J. W. C. Pennington Charles B. Ray Josiah Brewer J. R. Johnson Edward Weed Of these the most noted was Arthur Tappan, a sketch of whose life has been given in a pre- vious chapter. Two of these original members belonged to the negro race. Josiah Brewer, the father of the honored Associate Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court, brought with him both missionary experience and large personal influence. He served on the Board for seventeen years. Only one, W. E. Whiting, who remained on the Committee for thirty-six years, was a member of the original company at the time of the Civil War. 3*3 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION During the war, among those who shaped the history of the Association as its Executive Com- mittee were Rev. William B. Brown, d.d., 1855— 1880, and Rev. John Milton Holmes, 1 862-1 869. At this time the Corresponding Secretaries and Field Secretaries were members of the Executive Committee and were largely responsible both for the plans of the work and for their execution. They had personal acquaintance with existing conditions and had their facts at first hand. They were familiar with the South, and theirs was the chief influence both in respect to the location of the institutions and the direction of their policies. Of prominent names on the Executive Committee since, there were Hon. Samuel Holmes, who served with great faithfulness and constancy of devotion for thirty-three years; General O. O. Howard; General Clinton B. Fisk, 1 875-1890; Mr. Charles L. Mead, 1875-1898; Dr. Lyman Abbott for ten years ; Dr. A. J. Lyman, fourteen years; Dr. J. W. Cooper, sixteen years; Dr. Elijah Horr, twelve years, and Dr. Nehemiah Boynton, ten years. Of the present members those longest in service are Mr. Charles A. Hull, twenty-five years, and for several years chair- man of the Committee; Dr. William H. Ward, twenty-seven years; Dr. L. C. Warner, sixteen years, and Dr. Lewellyn Pratt, eleven years. 3i4 "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" It will be seen that while frequent changes have occurred in the membership of the Committee a historic continuity has been preserved which is exceedingly important in view of the many prob- lems that have confronted the Association. The duties of the Executive Committee, which holds its regular meetings on the second Tuesday of each month, call for constant and most careful attention. To a " Committee on Finance " is en- trusted the special regard for the property of the Association, both land and buildings, and of all the trusts in its hands. The legacies, endow- ments, investments, and the like are under their special oversight and direction when once passed upon by the General Committee. A " Committee on Missions " hears the reports from the respective fields, decides upon recom- mendations for their varied claims and necessi- ties, and in general furthers the efficiency and economy of the missionary work of the Associa- tion, whether it be in churches or schools. This is subject to the supervision and direction of the Executive Committee. A " Committee on Sup- port " considers methods of promoting a mis- sionary spirit throughout the churches and of securing funds for the support of the work and for the pressing demands for its enlargement. Each of these committees appoints its own meet- 3i5 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION ings and keeps its own book to record its proceed- ings, the minutes of which are read at the regular meetings of the Executive Committee; and each of them is in regular consultation with the Cor- responding Secretaries whose information and advice is sought on all questions that present themselves to the Association. Additionally a special " Committee on Appro- priation " has for its duty the consideration of the work of the Association and the presentation to the Executive Committee of a detailed state- ment of the amounts necessary for each depart- ment of the work, and the recommendation as to the amounts which should be appropriated for the ensuing fiscal year. The Corresponding Secretaries, previous to changes which came by the outbreak of the Civil War, were Rev. George Whipple, d.d., from 1847 to 1876, and Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, from 1853 to 1863. In 1864 Rev. M. E. Strieby, d.d., suc- ceeded Mr. Jocelyn and continued until 1895, when he was appointed " Honorary Secretary," which office he held until his death. Rev. J. R. Shipherd served for two years, from 1866; and Rev. W. W. Patton, d.d., for two years from 1868. Rev. James Powell, d.d., who had served both as District Secretary and As- sociate Corresponding Secretary, was Corre- 316 "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" sponding Secretary in 1887 and died in the same year. Rev. A. F. Beard, d.d., who was called from the American Church in Paris, France, to be Associate Corresponding Secretary in 1884, was elected Corresponding Secretary in 1887. After a service of eighteen years in this capacity, Dr. Beard was elected " Honorary Secretary and Editor." Rev. Frank P. Woodbury, d.d., was Corresponding Secretary from 1890 to 1905. Rev. C. J. Ryder, d.d., who was Assistant Cor- responding Secretary in 1892, became a Corre- sponding Secretary in 1895. Rev. James W. Cooper, d.d., was elected Senior Corresponding Secretary in 1903. The duties of these officers named above have been the charge and direction of the work of the Association under the Executive Committee. Responsible for plans and suggestions, for facts and intelligence from the varied institutions in the field; for general watch and care of every interest as well as for the proper presentation of these interests to the churches and the public, the position is one of unceasing thought and anxiety. The treasury is a department the importance of which every one can realize, but which those who have not particularly informed themselves can but partially appreciate. To receive all money 3i7 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION contributed or entrusted to the Association, and to keep clear and accurate accounts of sums re- ceived and expended, were this all its functions, would be comparatively easy. The correspond- ence immediately relating to this department is large and calls for constant consideration. It in- volves not simply the payment of teachers and missionaries, the insurance of properties in very many states, but also the care of all deeds, the watchful protection of all endowments and in- vestments and estates, that no losses may any- where occur. The books and accounts are ever open to the inspection of any member of the Executive Committee and are submitted month by month to the Finance Committee for their examination. The first Treasurer, Lewis Tappan, served, from 1846, nineteen years. He was succeeded by Edgar Ketchum, who was Treasurer from 1866 to 1879. I n l &76 Henry W. Hubbard was called from Fisk University as Assistant Treas- urer, and was appointed Treasurer in 1879. The thirty-three years of the Treasurership filled by Mr. Hubbard have witnessed a good part of the development of the Association, and there is no one at the present time who has an equal memory of the facts and incidents of the earlier history. If fidelity coupled with ability and con- 318 "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" stant loyalty to all the interests and principles of the Association call for appreciative record in this story of its life and work then this testimony on the part of the writer of this history is but a partial recognition of difficult work well done. Among those who have linked the work of their lives with the history of the Association was Rev. Joseph E. Roy, d.d., who for ten years as Field Superintendent and eighteen as District Secretary at Chicago, made a deep impression and exerted a wide influence in each capacity. When he died he was the last of those truly large, broad-minded, wide-visioned men who espoused an unpopular cause in its beginning and conse- crated themselves in full-hearted sincerity and without question to the oppressed and to their uplifting. Dr. Roy was simply revered among the colored people of the South. He had not only their absolute confidence, but the abundant wealth of their affection as a loving friend of their race. The influence of his personality will not pass away with his earthly life. One of the forces of the Association from its first days has been The American Missionary. Not a great magazine, it has had its full share of influence in developing and holding the special constituency which has supported the work. Upon its pages are the stories of its hopes and 3i9 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION fears, its struggles and its successes. Those who have welcomed it to their homes have been the steadfast friends of all that the Association rep- resents. These are they whose constant flow of benevolence has made the columns of figures in the financial reports from month to month and year to year swell into the great total of mil- lions of dollars which have gone into the lives and characters of millions of people. This transmu- tation of gold into character in human life has in part been effected by The American Mission- ary, which has always been a chief agency in spreading the intelligence of its work, thus inter- esting those who have contributed, not money only, but themselves, their sons and daughters for the service of the Association in its mission to the lowly and the needy. A distinguished negro, who is not in denominational affiliation with us, writing upon " The Progress and Devel- opment of the Colored People," says: Among the forces that have helped to make this progress possible I place the kindly sympathy that has been manifested by our white friends. I do not believe that in the history of the world there ever went into a needy field a nobler band of men and women than those who went into the South at the close of the war for work among freedmen. Too much emphasis can- not be placed upon the type of white men and women with whom this race first came in contact in its efforts 320 JuSliPH li. KiiV. D.D. "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" to rise, and of those who have largely had control of the great philanthropic movements for its uplift. The boys and girls, the young men and women, who came in contact with these early missionaries and teachers, can never forget them, nor can the impressions made upon them ever be effaced. The spirit of these early missionaries and teachers survives in some of the men and women who are still laboring in the Southern field, who are now teaching in the schools, colleges, and universities, for which we are profoundly grateful. All the great religious denominations of the country have had a hand in this work of development, but of them all the contribution made by the American Mis- sionary Association, in my judgment, has been of greatest value. More than any other organization you have recognized the manhood of the negro; and in all your dealings with him you have more largely than any other organization, so far as I know, treated him as a man and a brother; and so you have been swayed less than any other organization, so far as I know, by colorphobia; and I believe of all organiza- tions that have been working among us as a race, your great Association has shown most of the spirit of what I call true, genuine Christianity. There are some things that the men and women who make up the church of Jesus Christ ought to grapple with, and one of them is race prejudice. The reli- gious sentiment of the country has been powerless to check it because it has never concerned itself very much about it. Instead of lifting up the standard for the people, it has been too willing to follow the stand- ard which a non-Christian world has set up. Such 21 3 21 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION has not been the case with this Association. For example, the little periodical which you publish, The American Missionary. I know of no magazine in the country in which the negro question is discussed more intelligently, more sympathetically, more cour- ageously, or on higher Christian principles. It is never afraid to touch the question, or to speak out frankly, fearlessly for the negro, not because he is a negro, but because he is a man and brother ; it never stops to ask whether what it is about to say is acceptable to a negro-hating public sentiment or not ; its aim has been not to placate such a sentiment; not to express itself in such a way as to give no offense to such a sentiment, thereby throwing its influence practically in favor of such a sentiment, but to lift up a standard for the people — a standard which reflects not the spirit of race hatred, the spirit of caste, but the spirit of Jesus Christ. Wherever this magazine has gone, it has car- ried this gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man ; it has revealed the spirit of the men who have spoken through it, and it has shown that they were men who fully believed in the negro as a man and brother. Thus we have come to the sixty-second year of our missionary endeavor. After having gradu- ated several institutions and churches into inde- pendence and self-support, there remain upon our lists in the South alone, four theological schools, four colleges, twenty-nine secondary institutions, seventy-three schools of all grades, with five hun- 322 "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH*' dred and sixty officers and teachers, and more than fifteen thousand pupils under our watch and care. One hundred and ninety-four churches organized by the Association have nearly twelve thousand church-members. In Porto Rico, with one noble central school, there are numbered eight churches with five hundred and fifty-six church- members. Added to this are twenty-one churches among the North American Indians with some fifteen hundred devout church-members, and one Normal and Training School with eighteen in- structors. The Eskimo mission reports one hun- dred and forty-two members in its church at Cape Prince of Wales. Significant additions have been made to our mission plants, — notably at Fisk, Tougaloo, and Straight universities, and at Talladega College. Many of our secondary schools have been enlarged. Eight churches and branch churches have been organized among the Chinese and Japanese in California. Our inter- est in Hawaii has been abundantly rewarded. The year 1908 completes a period of twenty years since Daniel Hand, in his lifetime, made to the Association the great gift of $1,000,894.25 in securities. There has been added to this fund from time to time, from the estate of Daniel Hand, the sum of $464,965.00, making the total of the Daniel Hand Educational Fund received 3 2 3 AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION to September 30, 1908, $1,465,859.25. This fund and the income received have been kept separate and distinct from the other funds of the Associa- tion, and the accounts have also been as required by the terms and conditions of the trust. There has been collected as income from this fund during this period of twenty years the sum of $1,232,180.05, and there has been expended the sum of $1,229,582.54. In reviewing this twenty-year period of the Daniel Hand Fund, it will be of interest to note that the current receipts and endowments to the Association — exclusive of the Daniel Hand Fund and its income, and exclusive of income from the Avery Fund, assigned for support of missionary work in Africa — have been $6,928,237.81, and including the Daniel Hand Fund and income and the income for missionary work in Africa, the total receipts for the twenty years have been $10,230,569.87. Finally, the question before us is the same as when we began sixty-two years ago. To quote Secretary Cooper: "The question before us is: Whether the churches of America have the moral power to meet the moral problems of America. It is the test of our Christianity. The moral en- thusiasm of the nation which sent a million men into our Civil War to fight for the freedom of the 324 "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" slave, is something utterly unknown to the young men of the present generation. It required a great national crisis, the precipitation of open conflict, all the pomp and circumstance of war, to call forth the moral heroism, the dauntless cour- age, the supreme self-sacrifice of 1861, when men ' offered themselves willingly among the people,' and ' jeoparded their lives even unto death in the high places of the field.' Have we the faith in Christ and the enthusiasm for humanity which will inspire in us the same heroic devotion now? Have we the strength of purpose, the consecra- tion, the love of man, the impartial hope, to carry through to a successful issue this less dramatic but no less serious or strenuous struggle for humanity to-day?" 325 INDEX INDEX Abbott, Lyman, 265, 314 Abolitionist, 17 Abolition of Slavery, 6, 7, 16 Adams, John, 6 Adams, John Quincy, 29, 211 Africa, 38, 48 Alaska, in Northern, 295, 297 A. B. C. F. M., 22, 309 American Church, Paris, France, 3i7 American Missionary, The, 319 Am. S. S. Union, 22 American Tract Society, 22 Amistad Captives and Committee, 23, 3°> 42 Andrews, George W., D.D., 178, 200 Antislavery Societies, 6, 11, 15, 19 Appeal of the Colored People, 263 Arctic Ocean, 302 Armstrong, Gen. S. C, 125, 128, 273 Atlanta, Ga., 139 Atlanta Theological Seminary, 278 Atlanta University, 159, 160, 274 Atlanta University Board of Visi- tors, 192 Avery Institute, Charleston, S. C, 139, 160, 167, 180 Avery, Rev. Charles, 45, 115, 116, 127 Avery Station, Africa, 45 B Bacon, Leonard, D.D., 138, 223, 224 Baldwin, Roger S., 29 Ballard Normal, Macon, Ga., 141, 160 Bangkok, Siam, 57, 59 Barnes, Albert, 115 Beard, A. F., D.D., 317 Beecher, Edward, 19 Bennett, Prof. H. S., 160 Berea, Ky., 100, 104, 274 Board of Peace Commissioners, 67 Boynton, Nehemiah, D.D., 314 Brainard, Hon. Lawrence, 130 Bradley, Rev. D. B., 55, 60 Brave Women, 232 Brewer, Rev. Josiah, 39, 126, 313 Brick, Joseph Keasbey Agricul- tural, Industrial and Normal School, 276 Brick, Mrs. Julia A., 276 Brisbane, W. H., 19 Brooks, Mr. and Mrs. John S., 42, 44 Brownlow, Governor, 153 Brown, Rev. William B., 314 Bunyan, Thomas, 41 Bureau of Women's Work, 237 Butler, Gen., and School, 125 Canada Mission, 61 Cape Prince of Wales, 297, 304 Carter, Anson J., 41 Cass Lake Station, Minn., 66 Caste and Anti-caste, 15, 97, 101, 102, 229, 230, 239 Castle Garden Meeting, no Caswell, Rev. Jesse, 55, 59 Chase, Prof. F. A., 161 Cheyenne River Agency, 77 Chippewa Agency, Minn., 69 3 2 9 INDEX Christian Students, 201 Churches, North and South, 12, 17, 18, 21, 22, 138 Church formation and work, 172, 177, 243, 255 Church of Spain, 306 Clark, Rev. S. M., 68 Collins, Miss Mary C, 71, 72, 77, 78, 81 Colored Pupil in Williamsburg, 240 Color line in Churches, 228 Commerce and Conservatism, 111 Committee on Appropriation, 316 Committee on Finance, 315 Committee on Missions, 315 Committee on Support, 315 Concentration, 197, 245 Condit, Rev. John, 44 Conditions which created the A. M. A., 3 Conflicting thought in South, 253, 263 Connecticut, 13, 14, 15 Cooper, J. W., D.D., 314, 317, 3 2 4 Copts in Egypt, 61 Cornish, S. E., 313 Cotton-gin, invention of, 9 Crandall, Prudence, Canterbury, Conn., 13, 14 Cravath, E. M., D.D., 151, 152, i5 8 > J 59 Cross, Rev. Jas. F., 71, 77, 304 Curry, J.L.M., LL.D., 285 I) Dark Days, 107 Day, Charles P., 125 Death-rate in Africa, 41, 46, 47 Deed of Trust, 257 DeForest, H. S., D.D., 178, 214 District of Columbia, 16 District Secretaries appointed, 134 Distrust and Prejudice, 107 Division into Departments, 171 Eells, Edwin, 68 Emancipation Proclamation, 124 Emerson Institute, Mobile, 179 Emerson, Miss D. E., 237 Emerson, Ralph, 179 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 20 Enlargement, 138, 261 Eskimos, 298 Eskimos, Christians, 303 Fairfax County Convention, 7 Fajardo, 308 Favorable Southern sentiment, 220, 224 Fee, Rev. John G., 97, 104 Financial Experiences, 251 First Assoc, chapel, South, 139 Fisk, Gen. Clinton B., 150, 153, iS7» I 5 8 > 3i4 Fisk University, 150, 156, 274 Fluctuations of Southern sentiment, 219 Foreign Missions, 34, 62 Fort Berthold Agency, N. D., 69, 7i Fortress Monroe and Ex-Pres. Tyler's house, 121 Fort Sumter, 117 Fort Yates Agency, 72 Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- ments, 180, 188, 191, 192 Franklin, Benjamin, 6 Freedmen's Aid Society, M. E. Church, North, 281 Freedmen as African Mission- aries, 47 Freedmen's Bureau, 125, 170 Free Negroes, 167, 168 Friends of Bible Missions, 31, 37 Fugitive Slave Law, no, m, 114, Fund, Daniel Hand, 324 330 INDEX Garrison, William Lloyd, n, 12, 17, 18 Genius of Universal Emancipa- tion, n Gibbs, Professor, 27 Glenn Bill, 225 Good Hope, Africa, 43, 44 Grand River Station, 71, 77 Grand Traverse Bay, Mich., 66 Grant, Pres. U. S., 67, 69, 188 Great Britain, 134 Green Bay Agency, Wis., 69 Green, J. S., and wife, 51, 52 H Hall, Rev. C. L., 71 Hamilton, Alexander, 8 Hampton N. and A. Institute, 122, 128 Hand, Daniel, 256, 258, 261, 323 Hawaii, 295, 309 Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 3°9 Haygood, Rev. A. G., D.D., 221, 224 Henry, Patrick, 8 Hilton Head, 124 Holbrook, J. C, D.D., 134, 171 Holmes, Hon. Samuel, 314 Holmes, Rev. John Milton, 314 Home Department, West and South, 96, 104 Horr, Elijah, D.D., 314 Hostility in the South, 202 Howard, Gen. Charles H., 73-77 Howard, Gen. O. O., 125, 134, 171- 3i4 Hubbard, Henry W., 318 Hull, Charles A., 314 Humacao, 308 Indian Mission Meeting (first), 74 Indian Peace Policy, 67, 69 Indian Work, 64, 93 Industrial Training, 38, 163 Infusion of white blood, 168 "Irrepressible Conflict," 3, 99 J Jackson, Sheldon, D.D., 297, 300 Jackson, William, 19, 31, 129 Jamaica Mission, 30, 53, 55, 134 Jay, Judge William, 19 Jefferson, Thomas, 7, 9, 224 Jocelyn, Simeon S., 27, 212, 213, 3i3, 316 Johnson, J. R., 313 Jowett and Johnson, Mendi Miss., 44 Jubilee Singers, 156, 157 Just — " The just shall live by faith," 311 K Kaw-Mendi, 38, 41, 42, 44 Ketchum, Edgar, 318 Kinna (Amistad Captive), 42 Kinson, Miss Sara (Mar-Gru), 42 Kirk, E. N., D.D., 131, 133 Ku Klux Klan, 202, 232 Lake Superior Agency, Wis., 69 Lares, 307 Leavitt, Joshua, 16, 19, 211 Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, 160 Liberator, The, 12 "Little Scotland," 127 Lockwood, L. C, 121 Lopp, Mr., 297, 302 Ludlow, Miss Helen, 123 Lundy, Benjamin, the Quaker, 11 Lyman, A. J., D.D., 314 M Madison, James, 8 Mann, Horace, 113 331 INDEX Manual labor, 39, 41 May, Samuel J., 16 Mead, Charles L., 314 Memphis, Tennessee Church, 139 Mendi Mission, 30, 38, 48 Miller, Kelly, 283 Missionary Boards and Slavery, 108 Missionary, The American, 319 Mission Indians, Cal., 69 Missouri and Maine, 10 Missouri Compromise, 131 Mob expulsion of Missionaries, 103 Morris, Luzon B., 256 Mo-Tappan, 43, 44 Mountain Work, 238, 241 N National Council (1865), 133 New England Colonies, 3, 4, 13 New Fields and Old, 237 North American Indians, 64, 93 North and South, 3, 4, 5, 10, Northern Capital in Southern Mountains, 241 Northern Philanthropy, 283 Northwest Territory, 7 Number of Missionary Workers, 231 O Oahe, S. D., 70, 71 Ogden, Prof. John, 151 Oglethorpe and Georgia, 5 Organization, 31 Organization of Churches, 199 Ostracism, 169 Our Brother in Black, 221, 224 Park, W. E., D.D., 124 Patton. C. A., 269 Patton, W. W., D.D., 134, 171, 316 Peace Policy (Gen. Grant), 67, 69 Peake, Mrs. Mary, 121 Pennington, J. W. C, 313 Phelps, Amos A., 313 Phillips, Wendell, 112 Piedmont College, 276 Pike, Rev. G. D., 245 Pillow, William H., 313 Point Barrow, 302 Policy and Development, 145 Porto Rico, 295, 305 Powell, James, D.D., 246, 316 Pratt, Lewellyn, D.D., 314 Presbyterian Church, North, 281 Protestant Episcopal Church, 281 Ray, Charles B., 313 Raymond, Rev. R., and wife, 38, 40, 41 Red Lake Station, Minn., 65 Reed, George W., 72, 77 Relief Societies, 170 Richards, Chas. H., D.D., 264 Richardson, Rev. W. T., 68 Riggs, A. L., D.D., 70, 81 Riggs, T. L., LL.D., 70, 73, 77, 78, 81, 93 Riggs, Stephen R., 74 Riot in Memphis, 139 Rogers, Rev. J. A. R., 101, 104 Rosebud Agency, 71, 77 Root, Barnabas, 45 Roy, Joseph E., D.D., 319 Ryder, C. J., D.D., 317 Sandwich Islands Mission, 51, 5 2 Santee, Neb., 70, 71, 81 Santurce, 307 Savannah, Ga., 138 332 INDEX Schools following the Armies, 121 S( hurz, Carl, 190, 192 Seven Years out of Slavery, 193 Sherbro Island, Africa, 43 Shipherd, Rev. J. R., 134, 316 Siam Mission, 55, 60 Sierra Leone, 39, 48 Sims, Thomas, 111 Sioux Reservation, 70, 71 Sisseton Agency, Dak., 69 "Sitting Bull," 77 Skokomish Agency, Wash., 69 Slater Fund, 221 Slavery — introduction, decrease, abolition, 4, 6 Smith, Gerrit, 19 Smith, Rev. E. P., 68, 134, 205 Social Study of the Negro Church, 289 Society of Friends, 282 Southern solution of Negro prob- lem, 203 Spence, Prof. A. K., 160 Spirit of the Association, 109 "Spotted Bear," 74, 77 Standing Rock Agency, 72, 77, 78 State Normal Industrial College, N. C, 278 Statement of Principles, 37, 109, 146, 150, 155, 204, 226, 230 Statistics, 188, 193, 231, 243, 245 Stone, Mrs. Daniel, Gift of, 202 Storrs, Richard Salter, D.D., 20 Storrs' School, Atlanta, Ga., 141, !59 Straight, Seymour, 182 Straight University, 159, 181, 185, 275 Strieby, M. E., D.D., 129, 229, 267, 316 Suppression of Negro franchise, 191 Survey and Outlook, 272 Talladega College, Ala., 38, 159, 172, 179, 274 Tappan, Arthur, 11, 16, 19, 30, 32, i35» 138, 3*3, 3i8 Tappan, Lewis, 11, 16, 31, 210, 212 Theological Departments, 244 Thompson, Rev. George, 41, 42, 44 Thornton, Mr., 297, 301 Thurston, Rev. David, 130 Tillotson College, 275 Tougaloo University, 160, 185, 274 Transfer of African Missions, 48, 69 Transfer of Indian Missions, 69 Transfer of Jamaica Missions, 55 Transitional Phases, 254 Tremont Temple Meeting, 113 Two Civilizations, 226 Type of higher education, 162 U Union Commission, 170 Union Missionary Society, 30 United Brethren, 48 Violence, 99, 100, 102 Virginia Colonies, 3, 4 W Ward, William H., D.D., 314 Ware, Rev. E. A., 246 Warner, L. C, LL.D., 314 Washington, George, 8 Webster, Daniel, 111 Weed, Edward, 313 Welcome and Unwelcome, 217 Western Evangelical Society, 32 333 INDEX West Indian Missions, 30, 53, 55 Whipple, George, D.D., 31, 37, 113, 128, 207, 210, 268, 316 White, Prof. Geo. L., 156 Whiting, William E., 313 Whittier, John G., 16, 19 Williamsburg, Ky., 238 Williams, Talcott, LL.D., 288 Wilmington, N. C, 138, 160 Winnepeg Lake, Minn., 66 Women Teachers, Tribute to, 234 Woodbury, Frank P., D.D., 317 Woodworth, C. L., D.D., 134 Wright, Elizur, 16 Wright, Theodore S., 313 "Yellow Hawk," 73, 77 334 Pnncelon Theological Seminary-Speer 1 1012 01095 8579 Date Due T ,' _ -J^M(