Education in the South. BY REV. J. C. JHARTZELL D. D.. Assistant Corresponding Secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society, CINCINNATI: WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN PRESS. 1882. Education in the South. BY REV. J. C. HARTZELL, D. D., Assistant Corresponding Secretary of the Frehdmen's Aid Society. The thoughtful and prayerful attention of the Christian peo- ple of America is asked to the following statements, upon a subject which has to do very largely with the Christian civilization of one- third the people of the United States. The attention of the Ministry and Membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church is especially claimed, because the purpose of this address is to present such facts and arguments as will enable each, in the fear of God, to answer the question in relation to this im- portant work: "Lord, what wilt thou have nie to dot" THE SOUTHEEN STATES. These are the sixteen States in which slavery grew and until recently existed, and in which the effects of that institution stiE linger. Of the 50,152,866 inhabitants in all the States, a little more than one-third, or 18,504,384, live in the Southern States. This Southern population is divided, as follows: Anglo-Americans 12,458,979, knd Africo-Americans 6,038,183. There are in the United States 6,557,151 Negroes; so the Southern, States have one- fourth of the white, and twelve-thirteenths of the Negro population of all the States. When we remember that these multitudes are in America, and that their conditions socially, intellectually, and morally will either help mightily to make the nation permanent and glorious,, and the Church of Christ on this continent invincible, or will as mightily help to bring the republic to naught, our boasted civili- zation to anarchy, and hinder the Church in her mission; surely, no thoughtful statesman or philanthropist or Christian can fail to be impressed with the vast importance of the necessity, that all these millions have Christian education. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAI. CHUECH IN THE SOUTHEEN STATES. The educational work of the Church can not be considered aside from its other great forces. The Church under God uses the pulpit, the press, and the school. The Missionary and Church Extension Societies unite in aiding to support the ministry and in 2 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. building cLurclies; tlie Book Concerns publish periodicals, books, and tracts, and furnish Sunday-school literature varied in style and vast in quantity. The province of the Church school is to educate ministers for its pulpits, aud as far as possible teachers for the masses, and to so control the educational forces of the land, that the public education of this Christian land be not Christless. Led by the Spirit of God the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the close of the late war, entered upon her Christly mission of reorganization in the Southern States. Her mission in the whole South was the mission of peace and good will to all men, without distinction of race or condition. No mission of peace was ever crowned more gloriously with success than has been the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Southern States during the past fifteen years. Study the following facts: At the close of the war the Church had in the Southern bor- der States of Maryland, Delaware, the Virginias, Kentucky, and Missouri, among the white people, 67,804 members, and $2,330,- 693 of property; and among the colored people 20,000 members, and $250,000 of property. To-day on that same Southern border territory the Church has 221,797 members, and $6,693,846 in property, being a gain of 128,993 members, and $4,113,153 in church property. This border increase includes 85,000 among the whites and 38,000 among the colored people. In our new Southern conferences, which now cover the whole remaining South, the Church has grown from nothing to a mem- bership of fully 200,000, with church and parsonage property valued at $2,169,570. The Church now numbers on what was slave territory 410,899 members, and has church and parsonage property valued at $8,563,416. The net increase in the whole territory in fifteen years has been 313,095 in membership, and $6,282,723 in property. This is an average of more than 20,000 members and more than $350,000 each year. On the border the increase has been 85,000 among the white and 38,000 among the colored people; that is, more than twice as much among the former as among the latter. On the other hand, the increase in the new Southern conferences freedmen's aid society. 3 has been about three times as much among the colored people as among the whites; being 153,000 among the former, and 56,000 among the latter. The gain during the past four years has been 34,960. Nearly one-fourth the entire membership of the Methodist Episco- pal Church is in the SoutJiern States. In 1879, the Church baptized 40,406 persons in that territor}'. In 1878-79, 249 new Sunday-schools, with 2,416 officers and teachers, and 26,644 scholars were added, making in all then in the South 4,630 schools, 34,500 officers and teachers, and 264,- 898 scholars. These numbers have been increased since. In 1879, 167,655.13 were contributed to the benevolent causes of the Church in this territory. In 1879, 483 churches and 77 parsonages were built, being more than four churches a week and a parsonage every three weeks. Of the 2,255 ministers in that territory fully nine-tenths were born in the South. So this Church in the Southern States is not an exotic plant, but is indigenous to the soil, rooted among all classes of society. Only the day of judgment will tell the trials from race and sectional prejudices which met, but did not for a moment daunt, the heroic men and women who, under God, have developed this vast work. But these trials need not be mentioned here. The days of violent opposition are well-nigh past, and the epoch of toleration and discussion is upon us, and the morning of com- plete recognition from Christians of all names in the South is at hand. THE freedmen's AID SOCIETY. ' The chief educational work of the Church in the Southern States during the past fifteen years has been carried forward by the Freedmen's Aid Society. This noble society, under the direction of a wise Board of Managers, and of its judicious and energetic Corresponding Secretary, has received from the Church in fourteen years $987,294.98, and used it in planting institutions of learning throughout the South. The chief results are as follows: Twenty-one institutions of learning planted in the principal centers of the South. Six of them legally chartered, with full collegiate powers, . and all of them schools of higher grade, 4 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. intended chiefly to do the work of educating teachers and preachers. In these institutions, in 1879 and 1880, eighty-nine teachers have been sustained, and 3,138 students taught. In the fourteen years 66,000 different students have been in these schools. Fully $300,000 have been invested in permanent real estate — lands and buildings — on ivhich there is not a dollar of indebtedness. From July 1, 1880, to July 1, 1881, $96,141.35 were ex- pended in this work, 121,889.29 of which was put into real estate. Each year land has been added to land, and building to build- ing, and the cry from every State in the South is, more buildings and school facilities are needed. With the money given this so- ciety has done a work second in importance, success, and faithful- ness of management to no other work of the Church. The judgment of the Church on these points is indicated by the hearty indorsement given the society by the last General Confer- ence as to what had been done, and the practical enlargement of the work of the society to include the whole educational work of the Church in the South. EDUCATIONAL WORK AMONG OUR WHITE PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH. In the Southern border States of Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, territory wholly or partially occupied by the Church before and during the war, several insti- tutions of learning, some of them strong and flourishing, have grown up among the white membership of the Methodist Episco- pal Church. Lately the historic Augusta College of Kentucky has been reopened. In Missouri the two conferences are uniting on a single institution. These schools have had nothing from the general funds of the Church. Beyond these, in the new Southern conferences, our white peo- ple during the past fifteen years have made heroic eflJ)rts towards supplying themselves with needed institutions of learning. In the midst of difficulties scarcely paralleled in modern times, these people have labored and enlarged their borders. As shown by the figures already given, the growth of our work in the new Southern conferences has been three times as large among the colored people as among the white; still those 56,000 white peo- ple, on territory wholly unoccupied by us at the close of the war, PKEEDMEN^S AID SOCIETY. 5 have become au important part of the Church, and have a very large claim upon the whole Church, because of what they them- selves are, and because of what they represent iu the future sal- vation of the whole South. Among these people fifteen institutions of learning have been established in the States of Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. In these fifteen institutions are forty in- structors and about 2,000 students, and property worth fully $50,000. The school at Athens, Tennessee, is a good college. These schools have had but little help from the general Church. The Freedmen's Aid Society has helped some of them, as its limited means would allow. They are, as a whole, an expres- sion of the spirit and energy of a noble peojjle helping themselves in the midst of poverty, and also opposition at times akin to persecution. The judgment of the Church as expressed by^tlie last General Conference is that these people must be aided more by the Church at large in their educational work. UKIFICATION AND ENLAEGEMENT. The last General Conference did two important things bearing on our educational work in the South. In the first place, it most unqualifiedly approved the work of the Freedmen's Aid Society, and indicated that its work for the Negro population of the nation was only begun. In the next place that highest legislative body of the Church said: Resolved 1. That under the phrase, "and others," of Article II, in the Constitution of the Freedmen's Aid Society, wo see our way clear to aid tlie schools which have been established by our Church in the South among the white people, and the General Conference hereby recommends to the Board of Managers of the society to give such aid to these schools during the next quadrennium as can be done without embarrassment to the schools among the freedmen. 2. That our pastors, in presenting the claims of ' the society to the Church, should remind our people that a portion of the appropriations of the society will be made for the education of the white population connected with our. Church in the Southern States, but not to the em- barrassment of the work among the people of color. Herein is manifested the purpose of the Church to unify and enlarge her educational work in the whole South. This unifica- tion and enlargement is for the present, at least, to be carried 6 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. forward through the Freedmen's Aid Society. Whatever change in name or plans of work may be demanded by future develop- ments the providence of God will indicate. The work will go forward. Enlarged school facilities are required by the growing work among the colored people, and without abating one jot of interest or responsibility in that great work, the heart of the Church is being turned with increasing solicitude to the needs educationally, as well as spiritually, of the vast multitudes of white people in the South whose conditions socially, and intellect- ually, and morally are deplorable in the extreme. The Freedmen's Aid Society, acting in the spirit of the in- structions of the General Conference, has gone forward in this work of enlargement and unification. It is assisting to -pay the expenses of several of the institutions among our white people ; it has already made large investments in real estate, besides aiding needy young white men studying for the ministry. It is proposed to establish two j^stitutions of high grade for the whites to be located at Little Rock, Arkansas, and at or near Chattanooga, Tennessee. About these in the Western and Eastern South it is proposed to group the seminaries and colleges among our white people in all our new Southern conferences, ^t Little Rock a splendid property has been bought in the heart of the city, and one department or more will be organized at once.. At least §50,000 are needed at once for buildings at this point. A GREAT EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. Viewed in the light of the above facts, the educational work ot the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Southern States assumes the proportions of a great educational movement. It has to do in 'its relations with over 18,500,000, or more than one-third, of our nation's population; and included in this multitude are over 6,000,000, or twelve-thirteenths, of the Negro population of the nation. This movement has in it the chief hope, educationally, of nearly one-fourth the whole Methodist Episcopal Church. Already this movement has in fifteen years raised up thirty-one institu- tions of learning, in which are 129 instructors and more than 5,000 students. To permanently plant and endow these, and provide for yet others, as our growing Church in the South will demand, is a work the magnitude and importance of which the whole Church must come speedily to see. KXPI>* NATIONS.— This map is a copy o£ itie official map jt the United States Census of 1870. As far as completed returns for 1880 show but httle change. The six shades indicate the different degrees of illiteracy in the various parts of the United States among the people ten years of age and over. (1.) The wlitte sbstdes indicate the largest degree of intelligence, the illiterates < those who can not read or write) being less than twenty per cent, or one in five. C3.) The nearly wliite aliades marked I, indicate where from five to eleven per cent of the people, or from one in twenty to one in nine, are illiterates. (S.) The next darker shades marked II, indicate from twelve to twenty per cent, or from one in nine to one in five. (.4. ) The next, which may be called the dark shades, marked III, indicate from twenty to thirty-nine per cent, or from one in five to two in five. The very darh shades marked IV, inaioate from two m five to three in five. (6.) The blaeli shades marked VI, indicate over sixty per cent-thatis.more than three out of five persons ten years of ageandover in these portions of the States-can not read or write. With a picture of this map of our country in niinu, let the information and appeals in these pages be studied. feeedmen's aid society. 7 THE IGNORANT MASSES OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. The immense significance of tliis educational movement can, in part, be seen by studying lor a moment the extent to which igno- rance prevails among multitudes in the Southern States. We need not stop to discuss or condemn the causes which brought about this dire result. Such a course will neither reverse history Tior remedy the evils, present and possible, growing out of these stupendous masses of ignorance. The following are some of the principal facts: The Southern States, with only one-third the nation's population, contain three-fourths of tJw nation's illiterates. In 1870 (and the census of 1880 will show but little change) the whole nation had 5,618,144 persons ten years of age and over who could not read or write, and of these 4,161,253 were in the Southern States. (See Map Illiteracy hi United States.) This ignorance is almost loholly among native horn citizens. For example: Out of 588,986 illiterates in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, sixty-four per cent are among foreigners, while out of 1,275,323 illiterates in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina two and one-third per cent are foreigners. Ala- bama has 382,142 natives who can not write. Illiteracy among foreigners passes away as a general rule in a generation, but among native adult Americans, especially when found in large masses, it indicates generations of ignorance, with all the accumulations of habits and prejudices incident to illiterate people. Of the 2,000,000 voters in the United States -who can not read their ballots 1,500,000 live in the Southern States. From these States every four years 138 electoral votes, three-fourths of enough to elect the President, are chosen. From the same sec- tion come eighty-four per cent of a majority in the United States Senate, and a like large proportion of our National Kepresen- tatives. Can any statesman or patriot look upon this vast aggre- gation of ignorant voters in a single section of the Eepublic and not be alarmed? A very large proportion of tlie ignorance of the South is among the white people. This was so before the war, and then bore its fruits of- indolence and poverty among multitudes. The multi- plication and direction of slave labor absorbed almost wholly the capital, enterprise, and intelligence of the South. In 1850 there were, according to a Southern orator, in South Carolina 150,000 8 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. adult whites who did no work, or whose labor brought nothing to the State. The proportion of illiterates among the whites is as large to- day as at the close of the war. From one-fifth to one-half of the white population, in various sections of the Southern States, ten years of age and over, can not read or write. Tennessee has 68,000 women who can not write. Kentucky has 106,000, and North Carolina has 95,839 white men and women, twenty-one years of age and over, who can not write. These are specimens of the whole. Read the United States Census Rej)orts. Tlxe ignorance among the Negro population of the South is still dense. Probably not more than fifteen per cent, possibly twenty per cent, of the negroes of the South have as yet any education. Even this advance in fifteen years is remarkable when their pov- erty and surroundings are considered. As a people they are mak- ing heroic efforts and are doing marvels toward their ow'n educa- tion and elevation. But oh!. how dense the ignorance pervading their masses. In 1870 Alabama had 290,878 negroes, ten years of age and over, who could not read or write. South Carolina had 235,164, and Virginia 322,236. These are specimen States, and the rest are like unto them. Only forty-two per cent of the colored children of the South were even enrolled in schools in 1879. The past ten years have made changes, but not enough to very much lighten the dark picture. These wards of the nation, thrust in a mo- ment from the condition of slaves into all the responsibilities and dangers of citizenship, continue to present a picture of sorrow and of want which no human pen can describe. Those ignorant masses of the South must have Christian education. Ignorance multiplies crime. In South Carolina, where fifty-eight per cent of the people ten years of ag.e and over can not read or write, there were more homicides, according to a recent good authority, in 1878, a year of no political excitement, than in the midst of a population of 6,000,000 in States where the illiterates are comparatively few. So, too, ignorance multiplies paupers. Where ignorance prevails there can be no intelligent use of the ballot, and political demagogues ply their trade to the injury, if not death, of the body politic. Popular ignorance promotes strife between capital and labor. Patriotism, philanthropy, self- interest, Christian charity, in fact every possible motive bearing feeedmen's aid society. 9 upon man's duty to man, combine to demand that the Christian Church, of America should, with mighty faitli and benevolence, lay hold of this work of Christian education in the South. I say Christian education, for, suppose every Southern State had an effi- cient public school system, this would only increase the necessity of more Church schools to educate preachers and teachers. Where the State schools are best. Church institutions are needed most, and usually are strongest. All the Churches in the South, as well as the public schools of each State, are making progress; but in the great work to be done no Church in America can be free from responsibility. CONFLICT OF CIVILIZATIONS IN AMERICA. Another and very important view of this educational move- ment is had by studying the yet unsettled conflict of the two civilizations which have struggled, and yet struggle, for the mastery in the United States. One, the civilization of freedom, was typified in that company who landed on Plymouth Kock in 1620; the other, the civilization of slavery, was typified in that cargo of slaves which landed at Jamestown, Virginia, about the same time. In one the inspiring word and thought was freedom, in the other it was slavery. I need not here tell how these two civilizations have grown and struggled for the mastery in the past, first, within each individual State, and at last in the nation, in legislative halls, at the ballot-box, and then on the battle-field. Every possible expedient was attempted to avert the conflict. Foolish men said for a hundred years, as foolish men said in 1860, and as some continue to say, there is no conflict only as fomented by a few fanatics on both sides. But the conflict went on until in the awful agony of a life and death struggle on the battle-fleld, where half a million Northern and Southern heroes were slain, the real meaning of the conflict was learned. Then rung out, like the clear notes of the midnight bell in a storm, the sublime proclamation of the immortal Lincoln: The key-note of that proclamation was freedom to all within the nation's domain. Then the armies of freedom triumphed. But the conflict did not end there. That was the struggle of force with force, which, in fact, settles nothing, except where despots rule and slaves obey. The conflict between the N'orthern and Southern sections of our country was more than simply party leaders struggling for suprem- acy, or one army battling with the other for victory. It was 10 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. the conflict of two civilizations, each rooted and grounded in the profoundest convictions of millions of people. No people on the footstool ever fought a more heroic battle than did the people of the South. However much they have been wrong, no American can but be proud of their heroism in the late war. But if any one believes that when General Lee handed his sword to General Grant, that the political and social convictions of the South passed over with that sword to the civilization of freedom, as distinguished from the civilization of slavery, such a one has not read history aright or knows not the power of strong conviction. The abo- lition of slavery is accepted, but the conviction which preached from every Southern pulpit that slavery was a divine institution still demands that the relative positions of the white and black man shall be as distinctly marked as when the former bought and sold the latter. "Why should it be otherwise ? ■ Would the defeat of the Union armies have made the Christian people of the North believe that slavery was right? This conflict of civilizations is as distinctly marlced in 1881 as it was in 1860. Thank God, the conditions are so changed that the possibility of war is gone, and Christian men on both sides are striking hands, and each rising sun inarks a day's progress to- ward perfect Christian national unity. The conflict now is that of conviction against conviction, thought against thought, senti- ment against sentiment, ballot against ballot. If slavery "was wrong, and the conditions of society, and the habits of thought and types of belief which it developed were wrong or impolitic, then this conflict of sentiment and conviction must go on until those conditions of society, and habits of thought, and types of belief pass away. To do this requires that the convictions of vast multitudes of white people in the South be remolded, and that the physical and moral conditions of the millions just out of slavery shall be vastly improved, and also that the antago- nisms of race between these vast multitudes, intensified by the events of the past twenty-five years, shall all pass away. Who can fail to see the magnitude of this tremendous work? Christian people North and South, uniting hand in hand in Christian labor in the Church and school, must be one in this great undertaking. There need be no disputes over the past. The great and momentous present is here with its work and responsibilities. The chief power of slavery lay in the ignorance which, per- feeedmen's aid society. 11 haps of necessity, was imposed upon the Negroes, and, perhaps, as a matter of policy, was made the lot of vast multitudes of white people. Those masses must be educated up into conditions of independence of thought and action, and the Christian Church must lead in that work. THE SILVER LINING. The dark cloud of ignorance which shadows our Southern sky- has its silver lining. The nation is one. It will take time and the grace of God, but the best wisdom of the whole nation sooner or later will solve, and is solving, every disturbing question which has grown out of race or sectional antagonisms in this land. Sentimejit in tlie Soidh on the svbject of public education is under- going a great change. The South has always had, and has, its ora- tors, and poets, and statesmen, and highly educated classes; imtil lately but little thought was given to general education. One of the most prominent men in a sister Church in the South said to the writer a few months since, that only lately had he come to believe in common schools as at all desirable. Within five years a State ofiicial of Texas said in a speech that common schools Avere a species of commimism the South did not want. These repre- sented the sentiment of nearly all the South until recently. Now in every State a system of public schools is being developed. In the cities and large towns the progress is marked. The enrollment of scholars has increased the past year in nearly all the States. In some of the States the public school system is fairly supported, in others it lives beyond the cities but little more than in name, and in no Southern State is the system well supported. But the Eubicon has been crossed. In every Southern State prominent men, in Church and state, are committed to public schools for all the people. Out of 3,768,480 white scholastic population, 2,013,684 were last year enrolled in public schools of the Southern States and District of Columbia. That is over fifty per cent, and the per cent ranges from seventy-five in Delaware to twenty-two in Arkan- sas. Out of 1,668,410 colored scholastic population, 685,942 were enrolled in the same territory last year. That is forty-two per cent, ranging from seventy-five in Delaware to eighteen per cent in Virginia. This is a good beginning, and helps to gild the edge 12 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. of -that dark cloud, even after discounting shortness of the aver- age terms and the poor quahty of many of the schools. The work of the Nortliern Churches and associatiom in building sdwols and houses of worship in tlie South is being appreciated. The Methodist Episcopal Church has put certainly $3,500,000 in the South since the war, in supporting ministers, teachers, building churches and schools. Other Churches have put in millions in like good work. Vanderbilt gave SI, 000,000 to found a univer- sity at Nashville. The Peabody fund has yielded a revenue ot $1,136,650, all used in the South. Mr. George I. Seney, of New York, has lately given $200,000 for education in Georgia. Of the forty-two normal schools for colored teachers in all the South- ern States, nearly all the support, Mr. Eaton says, is from the North. In the higher schools established by Northern associa- tions in the South for the colored people are each year over 15,000 young men and women. These magnificent results of Christian faith, effort, and heroism are now acknowledged and appreciated by all classes. The South has entered upon a new era of commercial prosperity. Abolition and anti-slavery agitators prophesied that with slavery, gone the South would have greater financial prosperity. The ful- fillment of that prophecy has begun. Free labor has proven better than slave labor. More cotton, and sugar, and rice, and other Southern staples are raised each year now than ever before. Within eighteen months $100,000,000 of Northern capital has gone into raOroads in the central and eastern South alone. The tide of immigration will yet turn southward. Kailroads and mining interests and factories and improved methods of farming are in- creasing on every hand. This commercial revolution must go on and powerfully help to eradicate the prejudices of the past and unify the whole nation in sentiment and intelligence. These are some of the gildings which give the silver lining to the dense and threatening cloud of ignorance which shadows what is in many respects the fairest portion of our national do- main. I might follow these with many phases of discouragement, but I will not. Time is an essential factor in the solution of all great problems, and,' considering the tremendous revolution the South has passed through, and is now passing through, the pro- gress on all right lines toward a higher and better civilization has been remarkable. freedmen's aid society. 13 THE SUPREME DUTY OP THE HOUR FOR THE CHURCH IN THIS WORK. The supreme duty of the hour for the Christian Church of America in this work is to multiply Christian ministers and teach- ers in the Southern States. As far as possible, let these be from within the States thems Ives — educated on the ground and to the manor born. This is the policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This duty for years to come must be very largely done by Northern Churches. The Churches of the South, by the state- ments and appeals of their own leaders, are themselves struggling with poverty and lack of means and resources to do the work. In many respects they are doing well. But they can only do their own work. THE RESPONSIBILITY OP THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Upon no Church in America does so large a share of responsi- bility in this great work rest as on the Methodic Episcopal Church. She alone of the chief Protestant Churches in this country is national in organization. The Southern Methodist Church is almost wholly in the South. The great Presbyterian and Baptist Churches are divided North and South. Our Southern Presby- terian brethren say they will not send a fraternal messenger to the Northern assembly until the latter body expunges from its journals what it said about the South during the war. The Methodist Episcopal Church is in every State, being, in Louisiana as truly as in Maine; and this nationality of organization, with her vast membership and wealth and polity and spirit, commits her to this « educational work in the South by the twofold bond of self-pres- ervation, and of duty to needy mankind. The Methodist Episcopal Church sustains a unique relation to the white population of the South as compareA with any other Church whose chief centers are in the North. It is the only Church that was prominent in loyalty to the nation during the late war that has a large white membership on what was slave territory. That mem- bership now numbers over 200,000. Those on the Southern bor- der territory were true to the Church during all the years of agitation before, during, and since the war. Our white member- ship m the South is composed of three classes: first, those who did not believe in slavery and had no sympathy with the Confed- eracy; second, those of our people who have immigrated into the 14 EDTJCATIOX IX THE SOUTH. South; and third, those who, although Southern in sentiment, in matters of politics and associations, come to us because with us they think they find a more aggressive type of Christianity. The most positive re-enforcement this part of our work needs is a large addition of educated teachers and preachers. In this part of our work alone the opportunity for usefulness is unsurpassed. Here are hundreds of spirited young men, many of them called to preach , who want an education. They are mostly poor, but represent the most hopeful element of the great middle class of the South, from which chiefly the new South of the future must come. Their ap- peals for help are piteous. More than any one Church is tlie Metlwdist Episaypal responsible for the salvation of tlw Negro population of America. It had most to do with giving them their freedom, and the honor of that work is followed by the largest share in the responsibility of their sal- vation. What a multitude they have come to be ! In all the nation there are 6,557,151 ; that is, two out of every fifteen of the whole population. Twelve-thirteenths of these multitudes are in the South. They are increasing more rapidly by births alone than are the whites of America by births and immigration. During the past ten years the negroes increased by births thirty-five per cent, and the whites by birth and immigration thirty per cent. With numbers have come increase of character, and property, and home proprieties, and all the elements of a rapidly rising people. How God has thus, in a manner not to he disputed, swept aiuay all the false theories framed by the apologists for slavery or race prejudices. God thus proclaims again that freedom is the right and best con- dition of every man. May this nation hasten to know this fully to all its sons and daughters until race caste, which has cursed the altars of nearly every Church in the nation, and been the fly in the ointment of so many attempts at national unity, shall be wholly pat away. For a hundred years this nation has tried to count the Negro out of its civilization, only as he might be a hewer of wood and drawer of water; but the Lord Almighty has now counted him in, and made him powerful in numbers and tremendous for good or evil. He has a million votes, and may elect our next President, and the next. How important they should have Christian education! Rum threatens. Eome hastens to proselyte them, for they are Protestant by instinct. The weaknesses of body and mind resulting from two and a half centuries of slavery, feeedmen's aid society. 15 largely cliag to the masses. OI how God calls the Christian Church of America to save them ! How he piles up the arguments : gratitude, for out of their toil we have grown rich ; self-interest, for their redemption is our own; christian charity, for they are in want and we are rich; patriotism, for the christian civilization of this nation in its conflicts with Rome, rum, and communism may very soon need every one of their votes, it certainly will be safer with them ; philanthropy, for they are our brothers ; the judgment, for inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not unto me." How God specially calls the Methodid Episcopal Church to save these peopk. They believe in her. After the war they came to her with tears of rejoicing, as the lost child finding its mother hastens to weep in her arms. They appreciate what has been done for them. Over 200,000 of these sons and daughters of Ham are in the Church. Through these is an open door for the largest possible efforts of the Church to reach the millions. Our schools have powerfully impressed themselves upon the thoughtful Negro mind of the nation, and toward them multitudes of parents are looking and praying that in them their boys and girls may be ed- ucated. The peerless organization of this Church enables the best brain and heart and benevolence of the nation to be utilized with the least possible waste, and at the same time, by its specific supervision of every Church and district and conference and school by competent men, is insured the most rapid discipline of mind and morals. Tlie demand of tlie hour:in this work is more preaelvers and teachers. Of the 1,500 Methodist Episcopal pulpits in the South manned by colored men, fully half must at once be better manned, or the work suffer great loss. Never could it be more truly said, "The king's business requires haste." Every year these people are not brought under the direct and saving power of the Church, the chances are they drift away permanently from God, or go into the superstitions of Rome. THE NEGEO's PEAYEE. The negro bishop of Hayti, when visiting London, preached in Westminster Abbey, and in prayer used the following, which for eloquence has rarely been equaled : "O thou Savior Christ, Son of the living God, who when thou wast spurned by the Jews of the race of Shem, and who when delivered up without cause by the Romans of the race of 16 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. Japliet, on the day of thy crucifixion, hadst thy ponderous cross borne to Golgotha's summit by Simon, the Cyrenian, of tlic race of Ham : I pray thee, O precious Savior, remember that forlorn, despised, and rejected race, whose son bore thy cross, when thou shalt come in the i>ower and majesty of thy eternal kingdom to distribute thy crowns of everlasting glory." That prayer will be answered. No Christian can for a mo- ment doubt it. The question for us to consider is what share will we have in the joy of that redeemed people, because of faithful- ness to them in this their day of need. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. For 1882 the Freedmen's Aid Society asks for the work of Christian education in the South $150,000. How small an amount this when we look at the wealth of the Church or the demands of the work! What say you, pastors? Shall not God's plea for this work go through you to all our people? What say you, men of wealth, for whom God has done so much? You can not afford not to have a hand in this great work for humanity, your country, and God. What say the multitudes of Christian philanthropists, who may not be rich in money, but who can give a few dollars ? OUR PLEA. Our plea is to the brain and heart of the great Methodist Episcopal Church. Pastors and people, remembering what God has done for you, study this work, and prayerfully and willingly ask: "lord, what wilt THOU HAVE ME TO DO?' Donations and Collections for the Freedmen's Aid Society may be forwarded either to J. M. WALDEN, LL. D., Treasurer, Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati, O. J. M. PHILLIPS, Esq., Assistant Treasurer, Mctliodlst Boole Concern, 805 Broadway, New Yorlc. J. P. MAGEE, Esq., Metliodist Depository, Boston, Mass. R. S. RUST, D. D., Corresponding Secretary, Office of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcoiml (ihurch, Room No. 5, Western Methodist Boolt Concern, Cincinnati, Oliio. BEQUESTS AND DEVISES TO THE ®REEDMEN'S I^ID SOCIETY oy THIC METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Persons disposed to make bequests to the Society by Will are re quested to observe the following' form: / ^tve and bequeath to -'the freedmen's aid society oe the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH," a Corporation wider the laws of the State of Ohio, the sum of and the receipt of the Treasurer thereof shall be a sufficient dischai-ge to my Executors for the same. FOIjM OF A DEVISE OF LAI^D TO SAID BOARD. I give and devise to -'the erekdmrn-s aid society oe the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH," a Corporation under the laws of the State of Ohio, the following land and premises, that is to say : to have and to hold the same, 7uith the appurtenances, to the said Board, its successors and assigns forever. OF TIIK BISHOP ISAAC W. WILEY, D. D., LI>. D., P.esident. REV. R. S. RUST, D. D., Corresponding Secretary. REV. J. C. HARTZELL, D. D., Assistant Cirrespoiiding Secretary. REV. J M, WALDEN. D. D , LL. D., Cincinnati, O., Treasurer. JOHN M. PHILLIPS, Esq., New York City, Assistan: Treasurer. OFFK'K «'OKRKNI>0\I>INrG SICCRi:'! .\ K V . WKS TTGRIV MTS THODISO' BOOK CONO H:!Ii.I>J. 190 WEST FOURTH STREET, CINCINNATI, 0.