Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 34 No. 7 July 1880 by Various

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Prof. Chase, on his return from Africa to London, submitted the information, received from Col. Prout and Col. Long, to Gordon Pasha, who at that time was in England, and from him gathered in writing additional and valuable knowledge of the country, and the methods of procedure necessary for entering it. Prof. Chase also obtained an interview with Dr. Felkin, of the Church Missionary Society, who had just returned from Mtesa's kingdom, by the way of the Nile and Souakim. From these gentlemen, and the current literature of the year pertaining to the Nile Basin, we are prepared to re-affirm and supplement the statements made by us a year ago:--

From the information gained during the year, we are encouraged to believe that as soon as the means, now being gathered in Great Britain and America, is sufficient to warrant us in inaugurating the Arthington Mission, we can safely and wisely enter upon the work. The amount to be made up is a little less than ,000. May the Lord hasten His work in His own good time.

THE GENERIC AND THE INDIVIDUAL NEGRO.

We treat Indians and Negroes in classes as if it inhered, by eternal necessity, in the nature of things, that their individuality should be ignored, disregarded, or trampled upon. We are a great ways off from the true and right basis of action when we pass by the personality of any one with all his inherent rights and responsibilities, and think of him and treat him only as belonging to a general class.

It may be, that until his rights are respected by the public at large, the negro must receive special attention as the case of Whittaker has received; but, so long as his treatment is special because he belongs to a class, it is evident that the treatment of the class to which he belongs is all wrong. Whittaker's innocence or guilt pertains to himself alone, and should in no way affect the question as to the standing or character of his people. The feeling that it must necessarily affect them is one phase of the sentiment which has isolated and made intolerable the life of this poor fellow at West Point. Personally he appears to be a very fine fellow, but the condition of "his people" has necessarily--so these young cadets think, and evidently many others who are not in the callow softness of their cadetship agree with them--affected him, rendering him unfit for comradeship, or even decent treatment. The questions, , "Would you sleep with a negro?" "Would you associate with a negro?" "Would you marry a negro?"--these are simply absurd. Whether we would do any, or all of these, should be answered as in the case of any person of whatever race, in view of considerations and qualifications that are purely individual, with no reference whatever to Ham, or to his or her people. We associate with friends because of personal qualities, not because they are white or yellow.

We apprehend that in some schools for the education of colored people, the treatment of the pupil is special because of his color. He is made to feel that he is a special case, whatever the advantage or disadvantage of the fact, its honor or dishonor. He is a negro, and not simply a human being. He is to stand or fall as a part of "his people" rather than by his own individuality and personal character. We say again, with great emphasis, that we protest against the whole so-called necessity of the case as false and absurd; as indicative of abnormal sentiments which must be eradicated before right results can be even sought, much less reached.

THE THIRD STAGE OF OUR EXPERIMENT.

We have reached, and, in some of the States, have distinctly entered upon, the third stage of our experiment of negro suffrage. In glancing at these, we shall be simply historical, not critical; shall set down naught in malice, but with simple truth as we have understood it. The fragments of the late Confederacy resumed their autonomy as parts of this nation almost wholly under direction of the negro voter. There seemed to be a double necessity that he should be armed with the ballot, that he might defend himself against his old master who showed unmistakable evidence of his purpose virtually to re-enslave him, and that he might maintain the political ascendency of his friends over his master's old friends. In this first stage we had, as the political representative of the South, what is historically known as the carpet-bagger--an immigrant elected by the Freedman, hated and opposed by the native white; and legislation which burdened some of the States to the verge of endurance was the result.

The second stage was reached when the influence of the general Government was withdrawn from the South, and control passed again into the hands of the native whites. The alien was remanded to obscurity, or found the climate of the North more congenial, and the negro was mightily prevailed upon to forego his right to vote. This gave us what is generally regarded as the reign of Bourbonism. The white vote of the South became solid, and the opposition was almost silenced. We state the fact without commenting upon it or arguing from it. This result we might easily have inferred from what had gone before. The instinct of self-preservation, it would seem, must have compelled such a united front against the outrageous robbery to which the South had been subjected by ignorant and dishonest legislators.

But now we have entered upon the third stage of this experiment. The solid South is broken, not by federal assaults, or through the ambition of carpet-baggers, but by native greed of power. The irrepressible conflict between the "ins" and the "outs" hurls to the ground the fabric which seemed to the South so fair and so strong. The hero of a hundred battles leads the ignorant negro to the polls, deluded by lies and false promises, displaces one-armed Confederates who had fought under him, to make room for a low grade of negro politicians, trails the honor of a once proud old commonwealth in the dust, and dissipates forever the fond delusion of a solid white South. We have had the negro placed in authority for a brief day by federal power; then by a certain reaction driven from the legislative hall, and in many cases from the ballot box, by the outraged white restored to power. Now we are to see him debauched and led to the polls by political demagogues, in a desperate and most demoralizing struggle for office.

There is this one way out of our danger, and there is none other. We have been bold enough to attempt the experiment, staking the life of our Republic upon the issue; let us be wise enough to supply, with all promptness and fidelity, the conditions which shall ensure its success. While the statesmanship which thrust the problem upon us has given itself no concern whatever as to the issue, Christian charity has shown that a blessed solution is possible. Our schools have proved that of the ignorant slave a wise and useful citizen can be made. The path of safety has been clearly pointed out; now let the means for achieving this safety be supplied. We believe the nation ought to do it. We know the patriot and Christian must do it, or this third will prove to be the final stage in this experiment, not only of equal negro citizenship in a free Republic, but of Republican government itself.

AFRICAN NOTES.

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

MCLEANSVILLE, N. C.--Bible temperance meetings at McLeansville, N. C., seem to tone up the sentiments of the people. One young man, who at considerable trouble and expense had procured a situation in a grocery store where whiskey is sold, has thrown up his position and gone to work on a farm, because he was convinced that the Bible condemned liquor-selling, and he could not ask God's blessing upon his daily work.

CHARLESTON, S. C.--Prof. S. D. Gaylord, principal of Avery Institute and licentiate of the Central Association of Iowa, was ordained in Plymouth Church, Charleston, S. C., by a Council convened on the 29th and 30th of May last. Several members of the Council preached in various churches of the city, which fact indicates a growing ministerial fellowship with our missionaries and pastors.

The Avery Institute for the year has numbered 476 pupils, with an average of 376--its most prosperous year.

The "renewal of the Church Covenant," introduced and recommended by Pastor Cutler, is proving a great spiritual blessing to the church, and conduces to greater watchfulness on the part of the members.

MARIETTA, GA.--A gem of a church school-house, 24x40 feet, with a gallery, and furnished with wardrobes and Sherwood's crown double desks, was dedicated at Marietta, Ga., on the 6th of June. The people raised 0 for it; two young men in Illinois gave , and the A. M. A. furnished the remainder, and owns the property.

C. P. Jordon, a graduate of Atlanta University, takes the school; and Rev. E. J. Penney, also a graduate of Atlanta University, and more recently of Andover Seminary, will have charge of the church-work. Our Field Superintendent preached the sermon. A promising enterprise, strongly manned.

CHATTANOOGA, TENN.--During the absence of the Rev. Jos. E. Smith in Africa, a retired Presbyterian clergyman of Chattanooga, the Rev. T. H. McCallie, offered to preach for his church three Sabbaths for three months, and to extend the time if necessary. He took the greatest interest in the work, hunted up and looked after the members, and, either in person or by substitute, attended the Sabbath services and buried the dead, as if he were the pastor of the church. The Rev. J. W. Bachman, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of this city, also preached one Sabbath, and has expressed the deepest interest in the church, and invited the pastor to call on him.

BEREA, KY.--There were four accessions to the church at Berea on profession of faith on the first Sabbath of May.

THE FREEDMEN.

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

MAKE HASTE SLOWLY.

At one of our Southern conferences last spring, the brethren, colored and white, were bemoaning the small numbers and slow progress of our churches. A Baptist minister who was present, and who is engaged in this educational work, turned the tide by stating that there were advantages, for the present, in that state of things, and that his denomination suffered somewhat from the embarrassment of numbers. He said that he had been a farmer's boy, and that when at the tail end of a steam threshing machine for shoving away the straw, if for only a short time his associate stepped away, he found himself unable to keep up with the thresher, and covered down by the accumulation. So they were sometimes bothered in handling their great numbers by way of discipline and effort at moral elevation.

The editor also sets down the A. M. A. as the greatest rival of the A. M. E., and no doubt rejoices in this provoking of his church to love and to good works. But our churches, if they would attain to much of this helpfulness, must gain it upon the standard of intelligence and of Christian character, without the risks of wildness and superstition. And so, if God be with us, if we be humble and spiritually minded in our work, by and by we may expect large accessions of members. The president of a Baptist Colored University, himself a New England educator, remarked to me, a while ago, that he could see that in twenty-five years the Congregationalists would have a large church-work among the Freedmen, simply as the result of their educational process.

Our young pastors, who have not as yet the stimulus of the large congregations of some other communions, must remember that the influence of their churches is not measured by numbers, and that if they secure quality, this may go further than quantity.

THE HAMPTON ANNIVERSARY.

Distinguished Visitors--Speeches by Pres. Hayes, Sec. Schurz, and Others--Natural Development--Three Questions Settled.

The graduating exercises at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, on May 20, were of even unusual interest. A large and distinguished company was in attendance, including Governors and other notabilities from Massachusetts, and President Hayes and Secretary Schurz from Washington. A military parade by the students under the inspection of the President, recitations, and an exhibition of the various industries of the school, occupied the morning. The work of the Indian boys excited special interest. A farm-cart, complete in all its parts, tin-ware, tables and large silicate globes, were among the articles which they had made.

Whitin Hall was crowded in the afternoon. The students, 300 in number, seated on benches rising toward the rear in front of the audience, were a picture of neatness, intelligence and content. Those who remembered the squalor and ignorance of the colored people as they sought refuge in the Union lines during the war, could not fail to recognize the value of the work done by the noble educational institutions which the American Missionary Association has brought into existence through the South. This thankful feeling was deepened as the students took up the parts assigned them. Their addresses were not mere essays, but the expression of their opinions on practical, vital themes, concerning the welfare of their race. These utterances were marked with rare good sense, a freedom from bitterness for past or present ill-treatment, and a hopeful courage for the future. More than once some expression unexpectedly pathetic, or forgiving, or consecrated, brought tears to the eyes of those who heard.

The exercises of the students were followed by admirable addresses from some of the dignitaries present. President Hayes showed how the relation of the different races and nationalities in the land was one of our most vital problems, and how Hampton was solving it. Secretary Schurz considered at length the experiment of Indian education, which is being tried at Hampton, and showed why it might succeed now when it had not in the past. Governor Long, of Massachusetts, referred to the presence of these educational institutions in the South as one of the most important results of the war. Ex-Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, regarded the Institution at Hampton as the natural development of advancing civilization, which is breaking down the barriers of the races and bringing all nationalities together as brethren.

The concurrent testimony of these speakers, and the manifest conviction of the visitors present, was that Hampton is doing a grand work.

Its diversified departments are conducted with such careful attention to detail, with such consecrated, self-denying enthusiasm, with such genius in teaching, and with such faith in God, on the part of its principal, Gen. Armstrong, and his corps of teachers, gathered from the best families of the North, that the school could not be otherwise than successful. This language may seem extravagant, but, if any one is inclined to regard it so, let him visit the school next May, and he will appreciate the self-restraint of one who says no more than what has just been said.

The Hampton Institute has settled two or three questions very satisfactorily.

From the experience of this Institution, it is plain that it is quite possible to combine industrial with intellectual and religious education without injury to any one of these branches of knowledge. Nothing is more prominent to a superficial observation than the industrial side of Hampton.

The saw-mill, which since September last has cut over a million feet of lumber, the knitting-room, which has produced this year 12,000 dozen mittens for a Boston firm, the market-garden, from which have been sent this spring thirty barrels of peas a day to Baltimore, and from which have been raised peas and asparagus, together amounting in value to ,500, the ice house, in which are stored 180 tons of ice, the industrial room, where are made the students' uniforms, the cooking school, in which the girls are taught the culinary art, the printing office, from which is issued monthly "The Southern Workman," the shoe shop, the blacksmith's shop, the wheelwright's shop, the carpenter's shop, the repair shop, the brick-yard, which has supplied all the bricks used on the buildings of the Institution, the ,000 barn, where fine blooded stock is kept, the farm of 330 acres--these departments of activity, wonderful for their variety and completeness, are steadily training the students and the inhabitants of the surrounding region in ways of industry. But this is not all, nor the principal benefit, the students receive. If we may judge from a hasty inspection of classes, from the scope and skillful expression of thought in the graduating exercises, and from the testimony of teachers, a thorough and sufficiently extended education in all mental departments is given. Best of all, as the crown no less than the beginning of wisdom, the students, entering the school without special religious impressions, seldom leave it without becoming devoted Christians. The result of the combination of industrial with other forms of training, is seen in the evident union in Hampton students of hard good sense with scholarly intelligence and unostentatious piety.

Another question is most satisfactorily settled, whether it is possible to educate the Negro and the Indian together. On graduation day, in sight of the audience, was a stand on which rested a fragment from the building recently burned. It was a mass of red and black bricks cemented together, and prettily draped with vines. If this was designed to be emblematic, it was truthfully so. The red and the black races do harmonize most happily at Hampton, and cultivate together the graces of character. They are a mutual help to each other, especially the Negro, as farther advanced in civilization, to the Indian. Their dispositions supplement each other. The Negro is enthusiastic, demonstrative and dependent, the Indian reserved, bashful and self-contained. Each finds in the other, qualities that he needs and that attract him. As a consequence, there is great friendliness between the two races. When the colored boys were asked if any of their number were willing to room with the Indians, that the latter might learn to speak English more readily, there was no lack of volunteers. And no one can doubt the kindly feeling pervading the school, who has seen, as we have, Indian and Negro boys walking together, or chatting on the green with arms lovingly about each others' necks.

Other questions, such as the wisdom of educating the Indians away from their tribes, or of the coeducation of the sexes, we have no time to discuss. It is sufficient to say that the experience of Hampton is thus far entirely satisfactory in these regards.

FISK UNIVERSITY.

Examinations--Ode to Jubilee Bell--Dr. Willcox' Address--Prosperous Year.

"We stopped a while in the room where the Senior Class was being examined in Geology by Prof. Chase. One student was giving the names of sixty or seventy specimens of minerals, ores, rocks and fossils. Another was determining the nature of certain minerals by means of the blow-pipe, while another gave the classification of the mineral kingdom as he had written it on the board. Prof. Morgan was hearing a class in Cicero as we entered the library, and one of the students was reading in a sonorous tone the impeachment of Cataline by Cicero.

"In another room, Prof. Spence was hearing a class in Phaedon. Prof. Bennett conducted a class through the United States History within the hour and a half allotted to him. Other classes were examined in Astronomy, Virgil, and the Greek Testament. In Normal School, under the care of Miss H. Matson, assisted by Misses E. M. Barnes and S. M. Stevens, classes were examined in Arithmetic, Grammar, Physical Geography, and Reading. A person passing from one room to another would be impressed with the thought that hard and conscientious work had been done, and that the examinations were impartially conducted in order to draw out the exact knowledge of the pupil upon the subject under consideration.

"In the evening came the Common School Normal Exhibition, beginning promptly at 8.30 o'clock. The beautiful song, "The Morning Freshly Breaking," was sung by a well-trained chorus. The music of the entire week, consisting of thirty pieces or more, was under the charge of Miss Mary O. Swift, who combines with great ability as an instructor, a voice of rare sweetness and power.

"Those who took part in this exhibition had finished the normal course, which is adapted to the demands of the State schools, and received a certificate in which their standing in the studies of the Common School Normal Course is given. Most of these will continue to pursue their studies further. The examination of the day, together with the exercises of the exhibition, promise well for the remainder of commencement week.

"On Tuesday, examinations were continued. We spent a good deal of time in the Model School, an important attachment of the Normal Department of the University. The presiding genius of this school is Miss Irene Gilbert, a lady who seems to have been born for the position she holds in the Model School.

"She has had upwards of a hundred children from the city under her charge during the past year, and has carried them forward with an unflagging enthusiasm, which has secured the best results. The Normal Class, which received certificates on Monday night, have paid daily visits to her school to witness the drill which she gives her juveniles in the mysteries of reading, spelling, and rudimentary mathematics. Details of students from the Normal School have been made daily, who instructed the Model School pupils, under the critical eye of Miss Gilbert. When it is remembered that Fisk University contributes one hundred and fifty teachers to the schools of the South, it will be seen that the drill thus received is especially valuable to those who receive it.

"In the evening came the Union Literary Society Exhibition.

"Wednesday afternoon, at 3 o'clock, occurred the presentation of the great Bell given to the University by the Jubilee Singers and Mrs. Gen. C. B. Fisk, of New York. These were of an exceedingly interesting character. Speeches were made by Prof. White and Mr. Loudin, on the part of the singers, and by Pres. Cravath, Prof. Willcox, and others; after which a poem by Prof. Spence of the University was read. A number of pieces were sung by the Jubilee Singers, who furnished much of the music for all the exercises.

ODE TO THE JUBILEE BELL.

BY PROF. A. K. SPENCE.

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