Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 37 No. 7 July 1883 by Various

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Rev. Dr. Flickinger was also empowered to contract for the John Brown steamer, and visited England last December, on his way to Africa, spending some days in conference with ship builders relating to the kind and size of vessel needful. Before closing the contract, however, he decided to examine the depth and width of the rivers upon which it was to be used and other matters involved in its success in connection with the Mendi Mission. Upon his return to England in May, he contracted with Mr. Edward Hayes, of Stratford, for the construction of the steamer. It is to be 60 feet long, 12 feet beam and 7 feet deep amid ships, draft of water 3 1/2 feet, speed from 7 to 8 miles per hour to carry 15 tons cargo besides coal for running two days, and to have cabin accommodations for seven persons and room for the crew in the forecastle. It is to be of the best of iron and material throughout. Its engine will be 36 horse-power and of the most substantial kind, and the boiler of ample size and strength, adapted for wood or coal. It is to be finished in the early autumn and to cost ?1,777. To this must be added about ?300 for transporting and putting it in order for use, or a little above ,000 in all. We trust that unpaid pledges to this Association for the steamer will be forwarded to us without delay.

We call attention to the communication in this number from Rev. W. C. Pond, Superintendent of our Chinese missions. The magnitude and importance of his work will, we hope, stir the hearts of our friends to liberal contributions in its behalf.

GENERAL NOTES.

AFRICA.

--A plan to expend ,000,000 in the purchase of land to form two hundred new villages in Algeria will be presented to the French Chamber at the beginning of the session.

--Ahmed Tewfik Effendi, a Turk of high rank, has made a profession of Christianity and has gone to Cairo to work among the Mohammedans, under the direction of Mr. Klein.

--The Khedive has given a portion of land at Cairo to Miss Whately that she may erect a building for her school. The school contains 200 girls and 300 boys, of which two-thirds of the girls and one-half of the boys are Mohammedans.

--The Magwangwaras have released without ransom twenty-three Christian prisoners that they had taken at Masasi. The amount that had been destined to liberate these has been used to redeem the Makouas and the Yaos, their neighbors, who had been reduced to captivity with them. The farmers of Masasi, who have been sent to Zanzibar, will return to their station when it is deemed expedient.

--Mr. O'Neill will undertake a journey of exploration in the region between Mozambique and Nyassa. His principal object will be the study of the western and northern shores of the lake Chirona, and the ascension of a mountain near by, that is said to be covered with snow. The Geographical Society of London has given two hundred pounds for the enterprise.

--The English government has accepted an offer made by several chiefs to cede to it a strip of territory between Liberia and Sherbro 30 kilometres in length and two in width. The English rule will then extend in an unbroken line from Sierra Leone to the northern frontiers of Liberia.

--The chiefs along the river Magbeli have formed a union and concluded a treaty of peace, which has opened the river to commerce, and by this means a large quantity of products from the interior will be brought to the coast.

--The number of slaves liberated by the fact of their arrival on French territory increases rapidly at St. Louis. There are among them many small children that must be left with their mothers, but those who have attained an age when they can make themselves useful are placed in the families of the settlers.

--Captain Hore and his companions have successfully accomplished the arduous undertaking of conveying to Ujiji in sections the steel life-boat, which was dispatched from England in July last. The caravan reached its destination on the 23d of February.

--The reports this year from the Niger Mission sent in by the two African Archdeacons, Henry Johnson and Dandeson Crowther, are among the most remarkable of recent date. There are now 4,000 souls under regular Christian instruction at Bonny and Brass. On one occasion Mr. Johnson was invited to tell the story of the Gospel in a heathen town, where he found 500 people waiting to hear him.

THE CHINESE.

--Seven Chinamen were admitted as members of the Presbyterian Church at Los Angeles at the communion in April.

--The Hawaiian law prohibiting Chinamen from coming to the Islands has been repealed, and over 3,000 Chinese laborers have contracted for their passage there.

--"The Chinese American" is the name of a paper recently started in New York under the editorial management of Wong Chin Foo.

--It is reported that there are 2,500 Chinese in New York and its suburbs. Of these 600 are under instruction in Sunday-school, one school having 112 scholars in attendance at one time. Much labor is involved in their instruction, as a teacher is given to each scholar. About 40 are professing Christians. Three or four are studying for the ministry, and one has gone back to China as a missionary.

--There are 60 Chinamen in Springfield, Ohio, 30 of whom are members of the Sabbath-school. They claim that they cannot all attend at the same time, because the "Christians," as they call all white people, will take advantage of their absence and break into their laundries and steal their money.

--Rev. C. R. Hager and Lee Sam, sent by the American Board to establish a mission in those districts of South China from which the Chinese in America have come, are already at work. A house has been rented and an evening school for the instruction of the Chinese in English provided for. The plan for instilling the truths of the Gospel into the minds of the scholars by using the Bible to some extent for a textbook, which has been so successful in California, will be adopted.

THE INDIANS.

--At the annual examination of the Carlisle Indian Training School, Secretary Teller, Commissioner Price and Albert K. Smiley of the Board of Indian Commissioners, were present. The school now contains 367 pupils, 240 boys and 127 girls.

--The ambition of the Alaska Indian boys is seen in the response made by one Rudolph who was urged to marry a chief's widow, "I would never marry dirty old Indian; for ,000 I never marry her. When I am a man, I want to take a good, clean girl for wife. I want her to know books and to housekeep like Boston girl. I not like it my house all dirty, my children not washed."

--According to the latest statistical report of the Missionary Society of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, it had among the Indians thirteen ordained and licensed preachers, seven candidates, forty ruling elders, twenty-nine deacons, twenty-four organized congregations, and five hundred and twenty-seven communicants.

--Bishop Whipple, on a recent visit to the Indians of his diocese, administered the communion to 247 Chippewas. Fifteen years ago there was scarcely one communicant among them; now there are 8 churches in that mission, and they are building one to cost ,000.

BENEFACTIONS.

S. E. Lee, Esq., of Richmond, Va., has recently given ,000 to Wake Forest College.

The Earl of Zetland has given ,000 to the Edinburgh Association for the university education of women.

Mrs. Senator Grimes, of Burlington, has given ,000 for Blair Hall, Iowa College.

Smith College, Northampton, Mass., is to receive 0 worth of new and valuable books, the amount having been secured through the influence of Miss Sanborn.

Mr. Moody's Mt. Hermon school for boys has received a gift of ,000 from England.

Union Theological Seminary, N.Y., has received ,000 from a friend who does not give the public his name, for instituting a professorship for elocution and boys' culture.

A gift of ,500 has been made to Rutgers College by Henry W. Bookstaver, Esq., of New York City, a member of the Board of Trustees, for purchasing chemical instruments and other apparatus for the class room.

Princeton College has received ,000 from the estate of the late Frederick Marquand of New York.

THE SOUTH.

PROF. ALBERT SALISBURY, SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION.

ANNIVERSARY REPORTS.

HAMPTON INSTITUTE.

BY MISS HELEN W. LUDLOW.

The fourteenth anniversary of Hampton Institute was observed on May 24. The morning was devoted as usual to examinations and recitations, with exhibitions of the products of the various industrial departments and their operation. The Senior class was examined in political economy and civil government, literature, ancient history, arithmetic and algebra. They did very creditably, stimulated by the occasion, as is usual, to do their best. They had undergone less brilliantly, but on the whole fairly well, a severer test during three days previous, of written and oral examinations, conducted by or before an invited examining committee, consisting of Prof. Samuel Elliot, LL.D., late Superintendent of schools in Boston, and Prof. Albert Salisbury, Superintendent of Education for the American Missionary Association Schools. The general average of the class on the subjects marked by Prof. Salisbury was 70 and a fraction, several standing from 90 to 93. Dr. Eliot's eyes not allowing him to inspect papers closely, the others were marked by Mrs. E. N. L. Walton of Boston, who came down to conduct for the third time the annual Normal Institute at Hampton for its Senior class and graduates.

The under classes had their customary reviews. The Indian classes were special attractions, as usual, particularly the division of latest comers, in which some tiny girls and solemn braves emulated each other in telling, in unexceptionable English, what went into and out of a remarkably omnivorous bag, and what evolutions were performed by its various contents; their teacher winning Dr. Eliot's enthusiastic declaration that "her praises ought to be sounded from the gutter to the university." The Indians also did well in geography, history, arithmetic and an elementary botany class. The little kitchen-gardeners from the Butler School were as captivating as usual in their white pinafores and red turbans and housekeeping accomplishments. The center of the industrial exhibition was the Stone Memorial building; handsome wood work, turned moldings, flooring, doors, sashes, etc., from the "Huntington Industrial Works;" shoes ready for filling the contract for agency supplies; shining tinware from the "Indian Training Shop," sets of harness from the same; desks, settees, tables and cupboards made for the school, and a neatly painted sign--all the work of Indian and colored apprentices, whose names, with the period of their training, from five months to three years, were indicated on cards affixed to their respective productions. The wheelwright and blacksmith shops showed similarly ax-helves, wheels and iron work, and outside the door two gaily painted farm carts proclaimed the skill of Indian and Negro mechanics. The tailoring department showed suits of clothes made by colored and Indian hands. The girls of both races were represented by very neat sewing and inviting-looking cake. The farm products had a table to themselves; early vegetables, grains and grasses. An interesting exhibit was that of the little carpenters from the Butler School, a couple of miniature frame houses, clap-boarded and painted, with sets of tables, desks and chairs for furnishing.

The Normal School Press office had its own exhibit of printing and book binding. The press was running, the student compositors, boys and girls at their cases, and the veteran United States soldier at his book-binder's table.

The various shops were all in operation through part of the morning, and many visitors walked through them to see the Afric-American, native African and Indian apprentices working side by side at their various trades in the commodious quarters in which most are at last accommodated. Some extended their walk to the barn to visit the stock.

The afternoon exercises in Whitin Chapel and Virginia Hall consisted, as usual, of essays by the graduating class and former graduates, with music by the school choir, a recitation of one of Whittier's poems by a modest ladylike Indian girl of the Junior class, and a talk in the Sioux language by one of the three young Indian fathers now in training with their families at Hampton. His wife and baby boy stood admiring listeners in the doorway, ready to vanish when the applause of the latter became too vociferous. The Indian said impressively , "You all know that when a man walks in darkness, if he sees a light somewhere he will go to it; so I want you all to have compassion on us and teach us more of your knowledge. I am always thinking about the good news. I came myself to learn how to tell the good news to my people and show them the right way. We know that you have helped us, but we need more help. If anybody told you to do something you never had done before, could you do it at once? They will have to tell you three or four times before you know how to do it. My friends, that is just the way with the Indians."

Diplomas were presented to the twenty-eight members of the graduating class. Interesting speeches followed by several of the invited guests. Prof. Newell, Superintendent of the Maryland State Normal school in Baltimore, Dr. Eliot, Rev. Dr. Furber of Newton, Mass., Rev. Dr. Mix of Fall River, Rev. Dr. Burrows and Rev. Mr. Spiller of Norfolk, the last, a colored minister, all made very enthusiastic and telling impromptu addresses under the inspiration of the occasion.

FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE.

MISS ANNA M. CAHILL.

On Sunday, May 20, the baccalaureate sermon was preached in the chapel of Livingstone Missionary Hall. This and all the other exercises of Commencement had the added interest of being the first held in our new building--a building in whose beauty and usefulness for school purposes we have rejoiced all the year.

Ten young people--three graduating from the higher normal course and seven from the college course--listened to the earnest words of President Cravath, spoken especially to them, from John 14:23, on the power and need of an inner life of communion with God.

The annual missionary meeting which is always held by the missionary society on the evening of Commencement Sunday, was duly observed. Tidings had reached us of the illness of Secretary Woodworth, who was to have given the missionary address, and, failing to supply his place, we were thrown back upon our own existing missionary zeal, which, we were glad to find, burned brightly enough upon the home hearth to make a solemn, impressive hour of this last Sunday service.

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