^ CJ^iftieth 
 oyfnniversary 
 
 M. KATHARINE BENNETT 
 
A Fiftieth Anniversary 
 
 M. Katharine Bennett 
 
 BEGINNINGS are always interesting, and in the search for them 
 the mind instinctively reaches toward a simple, basic fact which 
 provides a point below which one need not delve. It would, there- 
 fore, be of keen interest could one name a date and a place of which 
 it could be said that here was the actual beginning of the woman's 
 nationally-organized body for Home Missions that came into corporate 
 existence on December 12, 1878. 
 
 Few organizations of wide appeal appear, Minerva-like, full-grown 
 and panoplied for service ; rather are they a natural outgrowth of vari- 
 ous contributing forces that find a need for union that strength, mutual 
 encouragement and efficiency may result. It was thus that the Woman's 
 Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church came into being: 
 so slight was the very first beginning that no one of those who par- 
 ticipated in it could know how pregnant with power and with prophecy 
 of service it was. A group of a half dozen women, shy and untrained, 
 gathered together in prayer and with earnest wish to serve, must have 
 been the seedlet from which has sprung "a. great tree filling the land," 
 as was said by Mrs. Darwin R. James in her annual address of May, 
 1886. 
 
 But the pages of church history open to interesting and suggestive 
 bits and authoritative information is spread in the volumes that record 
 the proceedings of the General Assembly in the early part of the nine- 
 teenth century. Denominational Boards, interdenominational agencies 
 and secular causes were not then so numerous as to claim the time of the 
 small group that formed the Presbyterian General Assembly, and the 
 records have much more the intimate touch of a family interest than is 
 now possible. In the Minutes of 1811 following a reference to "Mis- 
 sionary Tract and Bible Societies" are found these words : "It has pleased 
 God to excite pious women also to combine in associations for the pur- 
 pose of aiding, by their voluntary contributions, one or the other of the 
 above institutions." Women had already been led to "combine in asso- 
 ciations," so beginnings antedate 1811. Were these groups sporadic, or 
 was there one "in the beginning" and did others hear of it? How much 
 one wishes to know the answer to this. However, the record assures 
 us that these units were approved by those in authority, for the comment 
 on the above statement reads : "Benevolence is always attractive, but 
 when dressed in a female form possesses peculiar charms. . . , We hope 
 the spirit which has animated the worthy women of whom we speak, will 
 spread and animate other bosoms." 
 
 2 
 
Female Cent Societies of various denominations existed as early as 
 1800 and some were doubtless Presbyterian, but there is no definite 
 record as in 1811. But from that date forward there are frequent refer- 
 ences: the Minutes of the Assembly of 1815 note that "The Assembly 
 have heard with lively pleasure of the exertions of pious and benevolent 
 females in some portions of our church, to raise funds for the support of 
 indigent students in the Theological Seminary (Princeton) . . . Through 
 the past year several young men of promising talents and piety were 
 prevented from entering the Seminary for want of support. The 
 Assembly hopes that this fact will be sufficient to increase the number of 
 female associations for the support of indigent students preparing for 
 the gospel ministry." 
 
 The Minutes of the Assembly of 1819 make special mention of the 
 "Female Mite Society of Scrubgrass" and of the "Female Benevolence 
 Society of Fairfield," and Lawrenceville, New Jersey, established a 
 "Woman's Missionary Society in 1821, organized in the home of Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Green, the mother of John C. Green, who founded the John C. 
 Green School of Science at Princeton University. 
 
 Because this society is the oldest known Presbyterian Missionary 
 Society which has had an unbroken existence it may be of interest to 
 enter a bit into the thinking of the church women of 1821. A constitu- 
 tion was adopted by the Lawrenceville Society which read in part as 
 follows : 
 
 "We the subscribers reflecting upon the low and embarrassed state of the 
 funds of the Theological Seminary of Princeton, and of the various Presby- 
 teries having young men under their care, and upon the expense necessarily 
 attending boarding, clothing and instructing so many persons ; feeling too the 
 importance of preparing faithful and zealous men to meet the demands made 
 from various parts of the world for Gospel Ministers, and to fill up all 
 vacancies in the church, do deem it both a duty and a privilege to contribute 
 some aid, however feeble, to the promotion of so great and important a 
 design. 
 
 "Perceiving moreover the many powerful, disinterested and successful 
 exertions now making in our own country and elsewhere for the promotion 
 of our Redeemer's Kingdom upon earth, the rapidly increasing of missionary 
 and Bible intelligence from every quarter of the globe and the great utility 
 and importance of diffusing such information throughout a Christian com- 
 munity; do resolve to form ourselves into a society for the promotion of 
 these objects." 
 
 A report prepared on the occasion of the Anniversary of this society 
 said : 
 
 "These meetings were held every two weeks, summer and winter, as 
 required by the constitution. They lasted from two until six, at which time 
 the hostess served supper. If the day proved stormy, the meeting was post- 
 poned but never omitted. A record was not kept of the members present but 
 
 3 
 
of the absentees; the presumption being that all the members would be 
 present. In case of unavoidable absence, a substitute was sent. If this was 
 not done, a fine was exacted. The usual phrase of the secretary is, 'We 
 regretfully note that the following members were absent,' then follow the 
 names, not a long list generally. The manner of the record was calculated 
 to make the delinquent feel very shamefaced when the minutes were read at 
 the next meeting. A clergyman or elder came to lead in prayer. Most faith- 
 fully did these mothers of the church carry out the more difficult part of their 
 object, that of disseminating religious intelligence. . . . 
 
 "The following extracts gathered from the minutes, illustrate this phase 
 of their activity : 'Read an account of the Sandwich Mission, and Dr. Rom- 
 eyn's charge to the Harmony Mission. 
 
 " 'Began to read Brown's History of Missions and proceded to the "Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel among the Anglo Americans by Brainard.' " Brown's 
 History of Missions seems to have furnished the literary pabulum of a great 
 many meetings. . . . The feats of sewing that these ladies accomplished are 
 calculated to put their great granddaughters to the blush. They seem occa- 
 sionally to have done general sewing for the purpose of replenishing their 
 treasury, but generally they adhered to their object, that of assisting the ward- 
 robes of students who were preparing for the ministry. They noted the num- 
 ber of 'false collars' and 'false bosoms' made." 
 
 In 1822 the Assembly reported clothing received for students not 
 only from Lawrenceville, but from 34 other societies such as the 
 Female Praying Society of Newcastle, Delaware, and the Female In- 
 dustrious Society of Troy, New York. 
 
 "As the cool mountain springs are to the majestic Hudson," Mrs. S. F. 
 Scovel, Chairman of the committee called to organize church women 
 nationally for Home Missions, wrote years later, "so these time-honored 
 sewing societies are to the noble, recognized women's work of today." 
 
 That in some sections these various local societies had some relation 
 one to the other is found as early as 1824 for in that year it was reported 
 that the Rev. Mr. Rhodes who was appointed to work for two months in 
 Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was "to receive one-half of his compen- 
 sation from the Female Domestic Missionary Society of that County." 
 By 1828 one at least of the "Female Societies" had determined to make 
 claim to recognition for it is recorded in that year that "The Female 
 Society of Bedford, New York, which contributed $50.00 to the Board 
 (of Home Missions) requested that this donation be published in the 
 Christian Advocate and a copy be donated to them." It is significantly 
 added that "The Board decided to adopt this policy with respect to any 
 society donating $20.00 or more." 
 
 By 1844 there is record that the women's auxiliaries are preparing 
 boxes for the missionaries, especially to aid the wives and children, but 
 there is in the Annual Report of 1849 stern chiding that these boxes 
 are not to be considered as any part of the salary of the missionary or an 
 
 4 
 
"excuse to the male members of the Church to withhold or diminish 
 their offerings." 
 
 It is hardly possible to evaluate the courage and faith of those women 
 who were thus forming organizations of women in the churches without 
 taking thought of the status of woman during the first half of the Nine- 
 teenth Century, a "Century destined to be thought of as the Woman's 
 Century, so many were the changes affecting her status that came in 
 this period." Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery tells us that "Northamp- 
 ton, Mass., so late as 1788 voted 'not to be at any expense for schooling 
 girls'; another town graciously permitted the girls to assemble for 
 instruction in the public schools from six to eight in the morning, during 
 the summer months. This was in 1804. In 1826 Boston rather peevishly 
 abolished its girls' High School (so called) because so many girls were 
 clamoring for admission. The story is told that when the question of 
 taxing the town to provide schooling for girls was discussed in Hat- 
 field, one indignant citizen exclaimed, "Hatfield school she's? Never." 
 
 In 1834 Mary Lyon attempted in vain to secure endorsement of her 
 project for a Girls' School from the Massachusetts General Assembly 
 and it was not until 1837 that Mt. Holyoke Seminary was opened. 
 Emma Willard, Sophia Smith and others were still struggling for 
 educational opportunities for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan 
 B. Anthony and Anna Shaw had not yet succeeded in enlisting many 
 in the effort to obtain civic rights for women. A few vigorous and inde- 
 pendent thinkers were asking for a more generous attitude toward 
 women and better opportunities for them, but still the greater number 
 of both men and women were acquiescing in a status and a spirit 
 which in one New England community expressed itself in the state- 
 ment that factories were a blessing as, by employment therein women 
 and children "become a source of wealth to the family rather than an 
 encumberance." At a convention of the Friends of Industry, held in 
 1831, it was reported, says Miss Edith Abbott, that about $4,000,000 
 was paid annually to 3,900 female employees in cotton factories. She 
 quotes the report as saying, "This immense sum paid for the wages 
 of females may be considered so much clear gain to the country. Before 
 the establishment of these and other domestic manufactures, this labor 
 was almost without employment. Daughters are now emphatically a 
 blessing to the farmer. Many instances have occurred within the 
 personal knowledge of individuals of this committee in which the earn- 
 ings of daughters have been scrupulously hoarded to enable them to pay 
 off mortgages on the parental farm !" 
 
 Denied civic duties and educational opportunities, alert, intelligent 
 women turned to the church as the agency through which they could 
 
 5 
 
express their desire for service, for co-operative effort. But it would 
 seem that the church itself had no place prepared for them and had taken 
 no account of their potential value. Nothing daunted, quietly, persis- 
 tently, the women organized and worked, and made a place of their 
 own, and within the sphere they had chosen won the admiration of their 
 male contemporaries — as indicated by the Assembly records. 
 
 Then came the Civil War, disrupting, demanding, sorrowful. So far 
 as can be learned most of these small missionary societies. Bands and 
 Mite Societies, carried on during the tragic years. Gifts could not 
 always be as large, but prayer and service continued and new societies 
 were organized. The War, with all of its tragedy, brought to the 
 women a new knowledge of their abilities and a new desire for larger 
 opportunities. Hardly had peace been declared before the training of 
 the five hard years was transferred to the claims of peace. 
 
 It was not Presbyterian women alone who thought in new terms: 
 Congregational, Methodist, Baptist and other denominations found 
 among their women new demands for opportunity to serve the church 
 in larger ways. The parallel lines of the activities in the various denom- 
 inations are of keen interest but may not be told here. 
 
 In 1802 the General Assembly formed a Standing Committee for 
 Home Missions and in 1816 the Board of Home Missions was organ- 
 ized; for half a century it prosecuted its work in a vast land in which 
 communication was by wagon or on horseback, where the penetration 
 of the wilderness was a slow, difficult and dangerous process. Except for 
 the Indians and Negroes, the mission of the Board was to the pioneers 
 who were pushing from the settled regions into the more remote sections 
 and who were to be followed by the church. The commission of the Board 
 therefore took cognizance only of the need of preaching the Gospel. 
 In 1867 Alaska was purchased, increasing the national territory, and 
 in 1869 there was completed the last link of the first transcontinental 
 railroad. Spurs, north and south, and other through lines followed 
 rapidly; an era of tremendous national development followed, almost 
 unknown parts of the country became accessible and challenging need 
 for mission service was found. 
 
 It was in 1867 that Mrs. Alexander, the wife of an army officer who 
 was stationed in the then isolated territory of New Mexico, wrote to 
 her friends in Auburn, New York, of the appalling ignorance and need 
 of the Mexicans by whom they were surrounded. The Mexican War 
 of 1846-47 had moved the southern boundary of the United States to 
 the Rio Grande and many Spanish-speaking people had thus become 
 inhabitants of this country. They were illiterate, untrained, and the 
 vivid accounts of the writer so moved the hearts of the women who read 
 
 6 
 
that they organized themselves into a "Santa Fe Association" with the 
 purpose of supporting a missionary teacher in the city of Santa Fe. 
 This Association became auxiHary to the Woman's Union Missionary 
 Society, an interdenominational body organized in New York City in 
 1861 by Mrs. Thomas C. Doremus. A year later the Presbyterian 
 women withdrew from this Union Society and founded "The New 
 Mexico, Arizona and Colorado Missionary Association," auxiliary to 
 the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 On November 22, 1866, a Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. D. F. 
 McFarland, had reached Santa Fe and three months later had organized 
 a church; but he found so untrained and unprepared a people that he 
 opened a school for the Spanish-speaking children. To aid him the 
 Santa Fe Association sent a missionary teacher. Miss Charity Anna 
 Gaston who in November, 1867, reached Santa Fe by stage coach, 
 thirteen years ahead of the railroad. It is interesting to note that in 
 April, 1927, a building at the Allison-James School, Santa Fe, was 
 named Gaston Hall in memory of the courageous woman who had gone 
 there sixty years before, Allison- James being the direct successor of 
 the small day school in which she taught. 
 
 There has been , to date, 1867, no action by the General Assembly 
 authorizing Home Mission schools; the need, however, is so apparent, 
 the call from the missionaries on the field so insistent and the women 
 so eager to respond that schools are established and teachers sent, funds 
 being supplied by the rapidly forming women's organizations. The urge 
 for association with others like-minded was pressing: Boards and 
 Associations appeared, some raising money for both Home and Foreign 
 fields, some denominational, some interdenominational. Chronological 
 account becomes difficult, and details sometimes are lacking as records 
 are inadequate. 
 
 Robert Laird Stewart in his Life of Dr. Sheldon Jackson records 
 that the Santa Fe Association in its first year "paid the salary of the 
 Bible reader and teacher in Santa Fe ; assisted in defraying the expenses 
 of a missionary in Arizona, another in Colorado; aroused interest in 
 behalf of the Pima and Navajo Indians; sent out Bibles, tracts, and 
 three communion services. In all, $1,203.50 was raised. In the fol- 
 lowing year, money was raised for the purchase of a valuable property 
 at Santa Fe, upon which were buildings used as church, parsonage, and 
 schoolhouse. Then followed the establishment of a mission at Las 
 Vegas, the purchase of buildings there, and the erection of a church. 
 
 "The Ladies' Union Mission School Association, located at Albany, 
 New York, undertook the support of the school at the pueblo of Laguna 
 for the first three years of its existence. This association was organized 
 
 7 
 
as a branch of the New York Society, on a stormy day in the month of 
 March, 1871. In the following year, it was incorporated so as to hold 
 land for mission purposes. It proved to be a valuable auxiliary to Dr. 
 Jackson's work in a time of need, but, like the parent society, which was 
 also helpful at several points, according to its ability, it distributed its 
 work among the locations where the need seemed to be greatest, irrespec- 
 tive of denominational influence or control. 
 
 "It is worthy of note in this connection that the founders of this 
 Union Missionary Society and its several auxiliaries, were the first to 
 respond to the call for organized work in the support of missionary 
 teachers and evangelists on our western frontier, with a view to supple- 
 menting the work of the churches. In some cases, also, they were 
 privileged to prepare the way for the tardy advance of the missionary. 
 They were the first to break with the tradition, so long held by many in 
 the churches, that woman's work in the home field was limited to the 
 preparation of missionary boxes or the securing of funds to supplement 
 the deficiencies or reductions of the missionaries' salaries. The call 
 which they heard was recognized as the call of God, and in responding 
 to it by direct efforts to save the lost and uplift the degraded of their 
 own sex in the benighted regions of our new possessions, they became 
 the advance guard of a mighty and ever-increasing host of ministering 
 women, whose field extends now over a vast continent and whose influ- 
 ence is felt for good in every quarter of the land." 
 
 In the spring of 1870, the "New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado 
 Missionary Association" became "The Ladies' Board of Missions," 
 which under the leadership of Mrs. J. C. Graham, made itself auxiliary 
 to the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions and sought the co-opera- 
 tion of auxiliary societies for both branches of the work. At the close 
 of its first year, it reported forty-seven auxiliaries, and receipts in 
 money amounting to $7,647.06. . . . The sphere of its operations in the 
 home field was mainly in territories committed to Dr. Jackson's care, 
 and his advice and co-operation were sought in connection with the 
 points which the officers of this Board decided to supply." 
 
 In 1869 Sheldon Jackson, then a young man but destined speedily 
 to become a great missionary statesman, was sent by the Board of Home 
 Missions to open up the great Rocky Mountain area, to survey its needs 
 and to plan the church's advance. Through the pages of The Rocky 
 Mountain Presbyterian, which he established in 1872, Dr. Jackson told 
 in vivid and powerful words the story of the great new West and of 
 its needs and its possibilities. Travelling constantly into most inac- 
 cessible places, even to Alaska, of which territory he may be said to 
 have been the patron saint, he claimed the land in the name of Christ 
 
 8 
 
and called earnestly upon the church to bring its forces forward to the 
 banners that he had planted. His call was a challenge to Christians and 
 to patriots : to none did it come more clearly than to the women of the 
 churches. Dr. Jackson, more than any other one man, had long appre- 
 ciated the unused power of this group and was constantly urging that 
 they be encouraged to organize nationally for Home Mission service 
 and to accept definite responsibilities for women and children of the 
 neglected and exceptional populations. He argued that the sending of 
 "boxes" to the families of missionaries could not measure the service 
 of Presbyterian women and that the most direct challenge to them would 
 be in having one organization with auxiliaries and in giving that organi- 
 zation financial responsibility. 
 
 "At this time, strange as it may seem in the light of present condi- 
 tions, every suggestion that the sphere of women's work in the home 
 field should be enlarged, so as to include the establishment of mission 
 schools or the raising of funds except for the purpose of supplementing 
 the salary of missionary laborers on the frontier, was met with disfavor 
 or open opposition. In the strong Presbyterian cities of Philadelphia, 
 Pittsburg and Allegheny, where arrangements had been made for Dr. 
 Jackson to address the women in behalf of the cause he represented, 
 the pastors of the churches were waited upon by a committee of ladies 
 and entreated not to announce the proposed meetings from the pulpit. 
 . . . Another hindrance to its advocacy, at this time, was the attitude 
 of the officials of the Board of Home Missions, who could not see their 
 way clear to authorize or commend it. After careful study of the situa- 
 tion, from the standpoint of the missionaries on the frontier, the senior 
 secretary, the Rev. Henry Kendall, D.D., who at first was not favorably 
 disposed, eventually gave to it his hearty and unqualified support. From 
 this time onward, he was closely allied with Dr. Jackson in a long- 
 continued and persistent effort to gain for this cause the approval and 
 sanction of the highest judicatories of the Church. 
 
 "Through all the phases and developments of the movement, Sheldon 
 Jackson held persistently and consistently to the view that the best results 
 could only be secured for the home work by the creation of a distinct 
 central society devoted to this one cause. His experience in the field 
 convinced him that the work to be done was of such a character that it 
 must stand upon its own foundation and make its appeal on its own 
 merits; and in proportion to its relative importance and urgent 
 necessities." * 
 
 It should be noted that in 1870 two Woman's Boards auxiliary to the 
 * Dr. Stewart in "Life of Sheldon Jackson." 
 
 9 
 
Board of Foreign Missions had been organized, in Philadelphia and 
 Chicago, and that the Ladies' Board of Missions of New York, also 
 organized in 1870 was auxiliary to both Boards. In 1873 a fourth Board 
 auxiliary to the Board of Foreign Missions and known as the Occidental 
 Board was organized in San Francisco, to be followed in 1877, by the 
 Board of the Southwest in St, Louis and the Board of the North Pacific 
 at Portland, Oregon. 
 
 During the early 70's overtures were sent to the General Assembly, 
 some at least doubtlessly stimulated by Dr. Jackson, from the women of 
 a number of Western States asking that there be organized a woman's 
 national home missionary body. Year by year during that decade one 
 sees such a body foreshadowed. In 1873 it is indicated in Asssembly 
 that the women in societies are increasingly aiding the families of 
 missionaries and that they are also giving to other objects under the 
 Board of Home Missions and it is hoped that these gifts with those to 
 Foreign Missions may be "the precious first-fruits of a plentiful 
 harvest." 
 
 It is in this same year that General Assembly hears the Standing 
 Committee on Home Missions . . . report as follows : 
 
 "The hearts of our sisters are in both these enterprises (Home and 
 Foreign Missions). The same women who are most ardent in their 
 desire to send the Gospel abroad, are most zealous in efforts for the 
 evangelization of their own neighborhood and their own land. A por- 
 tion of them have thought it best to let the same organization embrace 
 both objects, and to let the work of both be supervised by the same 
 ladies. Others have thought that the whole work will be most efficiently 
 done if a separate Board of ladies have charge of each. Your Com- 
 mittee are informed of consultations among the ladies interested, which 
 give promise of harmonious adjustment, and of increased efficiency in 
 the prosecution of the women's work in both departments. . . . 
 
 "It was further suggested, 'that the Home Board should keep it in 
 their own hands; that they should not wait for ladies to take it up of 
 themselves, but should appoint a lady in each of several central positions, 
 who, with such help as she can secure for herself, might bring this matter 
 of raising money for Home Missions under our Board before the 
 ladies' Societies, or the ladies in their appointed district. 
 
 "Your Committee respectfully and emphatically commend these 
 womanly and business-like suggestions to the approval of the Assembly, 
 and to the maturing consideration of our Home Board. In one or 
 another form, through existing organizations or otherwise, as their wise 
 hearts, counseling with the wise minds of our Board may devise, we 
 trust that a large increase of efficiency will be secured, and that steadily 
 
 10 
 
more and more this one mission work, for our land and for other 
 lands, will become the work of our homes." 
 
 In 1875 General Assembly adopted a recommendation urging "the 
 organization of a Woman's Home Missionary Society, with auxiliary 
 societies, under the advice and counsel of the Board of Home Missions, 
 or its officers." In this same year it is reported that these detached 
 auxiliaries have contributed through "boxes" the sum of $7,348.90 
 and in addition directly to the Board, $12,582.50 or a total of 
 $19,931.48. 
 
 "On the 28th of January, 1876, a plan for the co-operation of the 
 women's societies with the Board was adopted and published. Up to 
 this date, however, the question of 'school work' had not been officially 
 considered. In several instances the missionaries in the field had estab- 
 lished schools under the direction of the superintendent, where funds 
 had been provided by independent societies or individuals, but the Board 
 did not assume the authority to plant them or to formally accept the 
 charge of them. In May of this year it is still further suggested to the 
 Synods, through the Assembly, to appoint annually a Committee of 
 women in each Synod, who shall be a medium of communication between 
 the Board and the various Women's Missionary organizations within 
 its own bounds." These Synodical Committees were appointed in seven 
 Synods the following autumn, viz., in the Synods of Albany, Cincinnati, 
 Colorado, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pittsburgh, and others 
 followed rapidly, continuing in active service until a few years ago when 
 the synodical organization made them seem unnecessary. When orig- 
 inally planned these Committees were not only to be "a medium of com- 
 munication" as noted above, but were also to "have the oversight of 
 organizations and operations for Home Missions among their sisters in 
 the bounds of their respective Synods." In the autumn of this year, 
 a gift of $500 was placed in the hands of the treasurer, for the employ- 
 ment of teachers in Utah, under the supervision of the missionaries. 
 In connection with its acceptance, the following action was taken: — 
 "That the secretaries be authorized to expend the amount thus con- 
 tributed, for the purpose indicated, without further commitment of this 
 Board." This cautious deliverance blazed the way for the considera- 
 tion and hearty approval of educational work on the home field by the 
 Assembly of 1877, "as rapidly as the women's societies should provide 
 the funds." The Committee of Home Missions reviews the overtures 
 that have been received asking for "the establishment of schools as 
 distinct from and in advance of the establishment of churches, and 
 consequently, the employment and commissioning of teachers as distinct 
 from ministers of the Gospel, and the Report and the Overtures note 
 
 11 
 
that such schools are already in operation through the use of funds 
 especially contributed for the purpose, and the Assembly is asked to 
 'authorize or advise, or at least approve, this new department of labor.' 
 
 "In these Territories, we must begin at the very bottom; and it is 
 found practically necessary, in order to succeed, to have schools under 
 direct conduct of the missionaries. Such schools care not for secular 
 instruction alone, but for religous instruction in connection with direct 
 gospel instruction. These schools should not be left uncontrolled; and 
 it seems eminently desirable that the Board control them." 
 
 The Territories referred to are those of Utah, New Mexico, and 
 Arizona, and in May of 1878, one year later it is reported that twenty 
 schools have been established, three in Alaska, ten in Utah, one in Idaho, 
 six in New Mexico. Most of the funds for the support of these schools 
 are evidently being secured from societies that are sending through the 
 Ladies' Board of Missions, although three or four smaller agencies are 
 sending funds and some local societies send directly to the Boards. The 
 Board of Home Missions finds itself at once impelled to define this 
 new service upon which it has entered, for primary education is becom- 
 ing increasingly the responsibility of the state with which the Board 
 does not wish to compete. It, therefore, lays down the limitations of 
 this service, limitations so wise that they have since been the guide for 
 Home Missions schools. "It is quite impossible," said the Board, "to 
 fix merely territorial limitations to this work, because the natural and 
 proper limitations are in the character and condition, and not in the 
 localities of the people to be reached." 
 
 But General Assembly has authorized a woman's national organiza- 
 tion for Home Missions. Is any action being taken to realize this new 
 society? Yes, the indefatigable Sheldon Jackson was striving to trans- 
 late Assembly action into living reality. "He was writing letters to 
 influential women in all parts of the land, with special reference to the 
 formation of a central organization for the unification of the work so 
 auspiciously begun. With a view to bringing this matter to a decision, 
 he urged the officers of the Synodical Home Mission Societies to call 
 a general convention for the formation of a central organization for 
 the whole Church. This they hesitated to do, because of the impression 
 which generally prevailed that the Board of Home Missions was the 
 proper authority to issue the call. He then applied to the secretaries 
 of the Board to arrange for such a meeting, but the members of the 
 Board were divided in opinion as to the expediency of taking such action, 
 and the secretaries in view of this fact were unwilling to take the respon- 
 sibility. Despairing of securing action from the constituted authorities 
 of the Church, Dr. Jackson issued the call on his own responsibility and 
 
 12 
 
made arrangements for a convention of women to meet at Pittsburgh, 
 Pennsylvania, on the 24th of May, 1878, to consider the desirability 
 of effecting the organization of a National Home Missionary Society 
 for the women of the Presbyterian Church. Haying called the meeting 
 he carried on a vigorous correspondence with prominent women in the 
 several synods asking their co-operation in securing a full representation 
 and a satisfactory issue in keeping with the importance of the occa- 
 sion. . . 
 
 Years afterwards Mrs. Wilson N. Paxton of Pittsburgh wrote to 
 Dr. Jackson: "But for your persistent, tireless, and wisely-directed 
 efforts, through the press and in public addresses in all the large and 
 many of the smaller cities and villages of the north, to arouse the 
 women of the Presbyterian Church to organized work for home mis- 
 sions and to create a public sentiment favorable to such an organization 
 I feel sure that the formation of "The Woman's Executive Committee 
 of Home Missions" would have been delayed many years. . . ." 
 
 Again the pages are turned and there is found recorded the meeting 
 of Presbyterian women held in Pittsburgh during the time of the 
 Assembly of 1878. At this time, a Resolution was adopted "that a 
 Committee of ladies be appointed from various parts of the country 
 to confer with the Ladies' Board of Missions, New York, as to the 
 propriety of that Board devoting itself exclusively to Home Missions, 
 and should the New York Board fail to comply with the overture of 
 the Committee, it shall be empowered to call a meeting of delegates 
 from the different churches at a suitable time and place, to organize 
 a new Board." The meeting with the Ladies' Board of Missions held 
 in July was "characterized throughout by a spirit of kindness, candor 
 and Christian courtesy." The overture was presented and counter plans 
 were proposed by the Ladies' Board: these were agreed to by the 
 representatives of the Pittsburgh Committee who were present but were 
 not agreed to by the absentee members when submitted in writing to 
 them and the negotiations fell through. 
 
 Therefore, on December 12, 1878, there gathered at the Bible House, 
 New York City, the delegates who had been appointed at the Pittsburgh 
 meeting. They were: 
 
 Synod of Albany, Presbytery of Troy — Mrs. William M. Johnson 
 
 Synod of Central New York, Presbytery of Syracuse — Mrs. M. C. Armstrong 
 
 Synod of Cincinnati — Mrs. W. P. Prentice 
 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Elizabeth — Mrs. R. T. Haines 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Elizabeth — Mrs. W. C. Roberts 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Elizabeth — Mrs. C. H. Langdon 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Elizabeth — Mrs. O. E. Boyd 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Jersey City — Mrs. Ashbel Green 
 
 13 
 
Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Jersey City — Mrs. J. D. Bedle 
 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Morris and Orange — Mrs. Robert Aikman 
 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Newark — Miss J. H. Nichols 
 
 Synod of New Jersey, Presbytery of Newton — Mrs. M. Gregory 
 
 Synod of New York, Presbytery of New York — Mrs. G. L. Graham 
 
 Synod of New York, Presbytery of New York — Mrs. R. R. Booth 
 
 Synod of Pittsburgh, Presbytery of Pittsburgh — Mrs. S. F. Scovel 
 
 Synod of Pittsburgh, Presbytery of Washington — Mrs. J. I. Brounson 
 
 At this time surely one of the first messages read must have been 
 the following telegram : 
 
 Cheyenne, Wyoming, 
 December 10, 1878. 
 
 Mrs. Oscar Boyd, 
 Rahway, New Jersey. 
 
 "Yours received, do not fail to organize. The work is greatly 
 hindered throughout the whole church for want of a central organiza- 
 tion. The women are waiting for a central committee to map out the 
 work and lead them. 
 
 (Signed) Sheldon Jackson." 
 
 A name was chosen — The Woman's Executive Committee of Home 
 Missions of the Presbyterian Church, and officers were elected — Mrs. 
 Ashbel Green, President, Mrs. R. T. Haines, Secretary, Mrs. O. E. 
 Boyd, Treasurer. 
 
 A national Presbyterian Home Mission Society had come into exis- 
 tence, not suddenly or illogically, but as the natural result of forces that 
 for three-quarters of a century had been leading up to this culmination. 
 Hundreds of local societies, some presbyterial societies, woman's synodi- 
 cal committees for home missions and small associations and Boards 
 antedated the national body. The beginnings were far back, were at 
 first weak and small; but the spirit of love and of life was in them, 
 and from them has come the unified and nation-wide organization of 
 Presbyterian women that for fifty years has served church and country 
 quietly, efficiently and devotedly. 
 
 How little could that group gathered at New York on December 12, 
 1878, have realized the forces that were being released but with what 
 prayer and love they laid foundations. As the Minutes of those early 
 meetings are read one is interested to see how few changes have been 
 made in principles : there has been growth, development, but on the lines 
 so carefully prepared. Presbyterian women of today are debtors to 
 those wise and forward-looking women of the time of beginnings. 
 
 Twenty-three Center Street, then the headquarters of the Board of 
 Home Missions, became headquarters for the Woman's Executive Com- 
 mittee. "No comfortable quarters," writes one, "greeted this first com- 
 
 14 
 
mittee, but instead a little upper room which had been used by the 
 Board of Home Missions as a storage place for leaflets. It was a 
 dingy room, seven by nine feet, with a sloping roof and one window. 
 A small table stood in the center, and for several years seldom more 
 than four or five women gathered about it to consider ways and means 
 for the new organization." 
 
 For seven years the Committee remained at the above address, years 
 during which the organization was perfected and in which a national 
 consciousness replaced a sectional one. During this period the work of 
 the Committee grew by accretion as well as by development: in 1880, 
 the Woman's Board of Missions of the Southwest, located in St. Louis, 
 decided to transfer its Home Mission work to the Woman's Executive 
 Committee, and in 1882, the Woman's Board of Home and Foreign 
 Missions of Long Island "which justly claims the honor of sending 
 the first female teacher to Utah" did the same. In 1883 the Ladies' 
 Board of Missions sends its last report to the Board of Home Missions 
 as it, too, transfers its Home Mission Work to the national Committee. 
 It must be recalled that present territorial lines between Home and 
 Foreign Missions were not established in the early days and that the 
 Board of Foreign Missions carried on mission work among Indians 
 until 1893. 
 
 The last report of the Ladies' Board to the Board of Home Missions 
 lists the mission schools that are being transferred: in New Mexico, 
 Taos, Las Vegas, El Rito, Holman's Ranch. "In Colorado," says the 
 Report, "the mission schools have been superseded by the public schools, 
 for which the people seemed prepared." A number of schools in Utah 
 are transferred: "First, in size and importance is the Salt Lake Insti- 
 tute" with 225 pupils, thirty of whom are boarders : other schools are at 
 Manti, Ogden and Richfield. In Alaska a school at Fort Wrangell was 
 turned over to the Woman's Executive Committee, this being the one 
 opened in 1877 by Mrs, A. R. McFarland, widow of the Mr. McFarland 
 who began work at Santa Fe. 
 
 In North Carolina, Whitehall Seminary, on the outskirts of Concord, 
 the forerunner of the Laura Sunderland School, was given to the care 
 of the national Committee and was the beginning of its work in the 
 Southland. The report closes with "A feeling of sadness comes over 
 us as we write 'the end' on this page of our history." 
 
 Thrt)ugh these various unions and the growth among the socie- 
 ties in 1885 the Woman's Executive Committee reports 175 commis- 
 sioned workers, and receipts for the year of $128,523.36. In 1883, 
 the Committee had already reported to the Board of Home Missions 
 that "all but four of the Synods connected with our General Assembly, 
 
 15 
 
have appointed 'Women's Synodical Committees of Home Missions,' 
 upon the existence of which the uniform and systematic prosecution 
 of our work as a part of that of the Church itself is based. . . . 
 The women and children of our church seem ready to support schools 
 in proportion as the call for their establishment is made known to them. 
 This fact has convinced us that it was true economy to print and cir- 
 culate extensively 'leaflets' in explanation of the work." From the 
 beginning appeals have been based on information, and there has been 
 at all times careful planning for the education of the societies. It would 
 be interesting could the thousands of different leaflets and the millions 
 of pages of reading matter that have been prepared, be listed. In later 
 years Mission Study Classes have been furthered and reading courses 
 have been prepared in furtherance of the educational plans. 
 
 In 1882 the Board of Missions for Freedmen was organized with 
 headquarters at Pittsburgh and the following year, by recommendation 
 of General Assembly, a Freedmen's Department of the Woman's Execu- 
 tive Committee was formed. The purpose was to secure from the 
 women's organizations auxiliary to this Committee funds for school 
 work among the Negroes and to make the machinery of publicity and 
 of the gathering of funds available for this purpose. Although the 
 name "Freedmen's Department" was given up in 1915, as not denoting 
 the actual relation this service still continues. 
 
 One other transfer of work remains to be noted : In 1907 the union 
 of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with the Presbyterian Church 
 in the U. S. A. brought the transfer of the school work of the former 
 to the Woman's Board of Home Missions. This consisted of Bell 
 Institute at Walnut, North Carolina, and three day schools. After a 
 few years of separate existence the Institute was united with the board- 
 ing school at Hot Springs, North Carolina, under the present name of 
 Dorland-Bell. 
 
 In 1885, the headquarters were moved to 280 Broadway, corner of 
 Chambers Street, where the Committee had two small rooms : its space 
 was still limited but there was room for a few more women at the 
 bi-weekly meetings. It is of interest to note that at the first session 
 of the Committee Tuesday was chosen as "Board Day," and that for 
 fifty years it has remained Home Mission Day at headquarters. 
 
 On August 17, 1885, Mrs. Green, the President of the Board, died 
 and on November 15, 1886, Mrs. Haines, the Secretary, followed her. 
 It is not easy to evaluate the services of these two women who with 
 courage and devotion had accepted the leadership of the new organiza- 
 tion, had established forms of procedure for it, and had permeated it 
 through and through with the spirit of prayer and of sacrifice. Their 
 
 16 
 
accomplishment, as well as the words of their contemporaries note them 
 as women of unusual abilities, of great charm and strong convictions. 
 The young organization was sadly shaken by these losses, but God had 
 raised up a leader in the person of Mrs. Darwin R. James, of Brooklyn, 
 who for twenty-four years was the efficient and beloved leader of 
 woman's work in Home Missions. To summarize even in the briefest 
 way the service of Mrs. James would be to write the history of the 
 Woman's Executive Committee and of the Woman's Board of Home 
 Missions during her presidency. She was the animating and guiding 
 spirit: one would wish to recount her force and charm, the power of 
 her trained mind, the clearness of her thinking, the statesmanlike quality 
 of her constructive planning, the daring of her imagination, the courage 
 of her execution and above all the spiritual fervor which lifted her 
 above petty annoyances, discomforts or disappointments. 
 
 It would be of interest to recount the names and the services of the 
 women who have contributed to the growth of the Committee's work, 
 but only a few of those who helped to build the organization may be 
 noted. 
 
 From the beginning Dr. Jackson had given to the Woman's Execu- 
 tive Committee the free use of space in The Rocky Mountain Presby- 
 terian, later known as Presbyterian Home Missions, and this means of 
 acquainting Presbyterian women with the needs of the mission field 
 and with the plans of the Committee had been of inestimable value. 
 In 1882, Dr. Jackson transferred it to the Board of Home Missions 
 which continued to publish the magazine in the joint interest of the 
 Board and the Committee. "The work enlarged from year to year, and 
 the need for fuller reports and statements regarding it than could be 
 given in the joint periodical, was greatly felt. A separate publication was 
 frequently urged upon the Woman's Executive Committee by many of 
 its friends, but for the sake of economy and the general unity of the 
 work of Home Missions, it has not been thought wise, hitherto, to accede 
 to these demands. By the act of the last General Assembly, consolidating 
 the various publications of the church, the Woman's Executive Commit- 
 tee cannot continue the joint publication and is constrained to publish this 
 new monthly, that the work of the Commitee may have full presentation 
 before its constituency." (Editorial in first number of The Home 
 Mission Monthly, November, 1886.) 
 
 Mrs. Delos E. Finks, the wife of a home missionary in Colorado, 
 was called to the editorship of the new magazine, a choice most happy. 
 Mrs. Finks brought to the task a mind of rich resources and keen dis- 
 cernment, calm judgment, peculiarly unbiased opinions and that redeem- 
 ing sense of humor which leavens so many difficulties. Her contribu- 
 
 17 
 
tion to the Woman's Executive Committee was a notable one both 
 through the magazine and by her wise counsels in the meetings of the 
 Committee itself, where, to use her own expression, she calmed "fever- 
 ish" anxieties. 
 
 When in November, 1911, just twenty-five years after the first num- 
 ber of the magazine had been published, Mrs. Finks died, the Woman's 
 Board found itself most fortunate in that the daughter of the editor, 
 Miss Theodora Finks, was ably prepared to carry on this editorial 
 responsibility, which she did with satisfaction and success until the 
 merging, in 1923, of The Home Mission Monthly and Woman's Work, 
 the magazine published by the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, to 
 form the present magazine Women and Missions devoted to the interests 
 of both Boards. 
 
 It has been an unusual history that in forty years a magazine should 
 have but two editors, and those two, mother and daughter : their business 
 acumen may be noted in that this little magazine built up a paid sub- 
 scription list of 40,549 which was transferred to Women and Missions, 
 and for most of its history was entirely self-supporting and turned over 
 surplus funds to the Board: this in spite of the fact that it has never 
 carried an advertisement. The Home Mission Monthly Building at 
 the Sheldon Jackson School, at Sitka, and Finks Hall, the Girls' Dormi- 
 tory at Wasatch Academy, Mt. Pleasant, Utah, were built from some 
 of the surplus of The Home Mission Monthly the latter happily com- 
 memorating the name of its editors. It is interesting to recall that 
 Mrs. Finks also served for six years, 1886-1892, as Corresponding 
 Secretary of the Woman's Executive Committee, and this during the 
 difificult years of establishing the new magazine. Fourteen women have 
 held this position in the fifty years, the longest term of office being that 
 of Mrs. F. H. Pierson, 1892-1902. 
 
 Until 1893 one chief duty of the office of General Secretary was the 
 administration of the mission field. The inadequacy of such care became 
 more and more evident and a new office, that of Superintendent of 
 Schools, was created. To this position there was called the Rev. George 
 F. McAfee, member of the well-known Presbyterian family of that 
 name and once missionary among the Sioux of South Dakota. Dr. 
 McAfee divided his time between the mission field and headquarters, 
 at this time at 53 Fifth Avenue in the old Lenox home, where the Board 
 remained from 1888 to 1895, when it moved to its present address, 
 156 Fifth Avenue. The intimate, personal contacts between the field 
 and the Board have continued to the present and have been a vital part 
 of the enthusiasm and affection of the women of the church through 
 the half century. Under the Woman's Executive Committee and the 
 
 18 
 
Woman's Board of Home Missions but five have held this office, the 
 title of which was later changed to Superintendent of Field Work. 
 
 In 1893 a Department of Young People's Work was also established 
 by the Committee. The Committee was keenly alive to the value of an 
 early impress on the minds of the young and to the fact that there 
 must be a constantly inflowing flood of recruits for service in the mission 
 field and in the home churches if the rapidly developing work was to be 
 carried on without halting. Young People's Work was still a new 
 thing but the avidity with which it was accepted and the splendid work 
 of the young people immediately won the most skeptical and through 
 the years the Board itself treasured with increasing affection this part 
 of its service. Three officers held the position of Secretary for Young 
 People's Work in the thirty years from its establishment to the con- 
 solidation of the Boards. One of these, Miss M. Josephine Petrie has 
 officially served the cause of National Missions for twenty-nine years, 
 the longest continuous term of any officer of the Woman's Board. For 
 twenty-six she cared for the work among young people, building up a 
 stalwart organization and enlisting large service. In her first year as 
 Secretary, 1898-99, there were reported $45,106.47 as contributions from 
 young people's organizations. In 1923-1924 the last of her service there 
 were reported, $139,543.59, 
 
 It was in 1893 also that the Board of Foreign Missions transferred 
 the last of its Indian Work and that the severance of financial relations 
 between the National government and the Presbyterian mission schools 
 for Indians was decided upon. It was customary for the Indian Depart- 
 ment to pay to sectarian schools a per capita amount annually for the 
 care and education of Indian children. It became evident that serious 
 competition for the children was conducted because of the funds and 
 that flagrant abuses occurred. There was anxious discussion at Board 
 headquarters as to the principle involved in this union of Church and 
 State, and in order to make its own position clear the Woman's Executive 
 Committee took action to refuse such funds. This meant in 1894 a debt 
 of $101,598 on the small Board, but in 1898 the report states that all the 
 indebtedness had been wiped out. 
 
 In 1897 the name of the Woman's Executive Committee was changed 
 to the Woman's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church 
 in the U. S. A., to indicate more clearly the scope of the work and the 
 responsibilities of the organization, but the relation to the Board of 
 Home Missions remained unchanged. 
 
 Surely no one could have foreseen the heavy responsibilities, in years 
 to come, of those who should be called to be Treasurers of the little body 
 organized in 1878. No one could have thought in terms of an annual 
 
 19 
 
income running over a million of dollars, in terms of Permanent Funds, 
 Legacies, Annuities, legal business, etc. But as the responsibilities grew, 
 so grew the women and each succeeding auditing company has testified 
 to the well-managed affairs of the Committee and the Board. In fifty 
 years, six Treasurers have borne the responsibility for funds. 
 
 In 1911 the Woman's Board of Home Missions, acting with the 
 Women's Board of Foreign Missions, established a joint service to 
 students for the purpose of keeping them while in Colleges and Uni- 
 versities in touch with the opportunities for service in the mission field 
 or as workers in their home churches. The results of this endeavor 
 cannot be tabulated but the influences of it are constantly returning. 
 Student Secretaries visited the colleges, spoke at chapel and with denom- 
 inational groups, held private conferences and carried on correspondence 
 with those students who had shown special interest in the work done 
 by the church and its agencies. 
 
 During all the years a large body of volunteer women have served 
 as Board members giving service that can hardly be estimated. Officers 
 and members have been as one group throughout the years, working 
 together for the cause they all loved and for which neither time nor 
 strength was too great to be given. From this membership the presid- 
 ing officer was chosen, also the Recording Secretary of the Board and 
 the various committees. Five Recording Secretaries have written the 
 many volumes of Minutes that record the doings of the Woman's 
 Executive Committee and of the Woman's Board of Home Missions, 
 Minutes that are of inestimable value historically. 
 
 At the tenth Annual Meeting of the Woman's Board the following 
 Resolution was adopted : "Resolved, That the week ending with the last 
 Sabbath of February be the week of Humiliation and Prayer; and we 
 recommend that upon one day of this week a special service be held, 
 when there shall be the confession of individual and national sins, with 
 offerings that will fitly express the contrition." For a number of years 
 this Day of Prayer was observed by societies auxiliary to the Woman's 
 Board, but in 1896 other denominations joined in its observance, and at 
 the present time the Day of Prayer for Home and Foreign Missions is 
 observed interdenominationally all over our country. 
 
 And what should be said of the host of Presbyterian women from 
 coast to coast who have been the very fibre of this national organization ? 
 Hundreds of thousands of women who during the fifty years have served 
 as officers in synodical, presbyterial and local societies, or who as unof- 
 ficered members have by gift, by service and by prayer carried forward 
 the cause. "The women that publish the tidings are a great host," and 
 none but the Master Himself may follow the wide-diverging and far- 
 
 20 
 
reaching lines that through the years from generation to generation 
 mark their service. "Let her own works praise her in the gates"— 
 this shall be the epitaph of each of these unnamed workers to whom 
 the Woman's Board of Home Missions owes all that it has been and that 
 has been done in its name. One dares not begin to name even a few— 
 the hosts of faces that rise before one are too numerous. Not the least 
 of the service of woman's nationally organized work has been the reflex 
 influence upon the women of the churches: it has broadened their 
 horizons immeasurably, has increased their sympathies, has enlisted their 
 patriotism and has deepened their spiritual life. All these emotions have 
 been translated into terms of service. 
 
 And what has been the scope of the organization which these women 
 have built and through which they have functioned? As we have seen, 
 its beginnings were the spontaneous eflforts of women in scattered 
 communities. There is no way of knowing the exact number of organi- 
 zations on December 12, 1878, when the Woman's Executive Committee 
 was organized but we know that in the year 1886-1887 there were 
 reported twenty-four Synodical Societies, 167 Presbyterial Societies and 
 3,500 local societies and bands, and 382 contributing Sabbath schools. 
 An amazing amount of hard work had been done to bring such results 
 in so few years. In this same year gifts of $192,296.55 were reported, 
 $17,379.74 of this amount being for work among Freedmen. 
 
 The year 1926-1927 closed with a report indicating 42 Synodical 
 Societies, 267 Presbyterial Societies, 6,000 Local Societies and Young 
 People's Organizations; and total gifts from them amounting to 
 $1,201,142.81. 
 
 The Secretary's Annual Report in 1886 says : "We are thus permitted 
 to close our year free from debt," and the women of 1927-1928 may 
 give thanks that good habits were thus early established and that they 
 and others were carefully trained therein. A 20 per cent increase in 
 gifts was urged that year of 1886-1887; in 1896 equal quarterly pay- 
 ments were first urged— an appeal that has a familiar sound thirty 
 years later. 
 
 While this account is but a brief history of the organized work of 
 women, of the forces that created it and of its contributing and 
 administrative scope, it could not be complete without very special 
 thought of the service for which it came into being, and the growth 
 and the magnitude of that service. There has already been noted the 
 special service allocated to it when it was organized, that of providing 
 schools for those special groups in the population that because of race, 
 language or territorial retardment were not provided therewith, these 
 
 21 
 
schools to give academic teaching, to place great emphasis on Christian 
 training and to prepare the way for the establishment of the church. 
 
 The larger number of these stations were day schools in small com- 
 munities and of these there have been some hundreds established by 
 this Board. To an unusual extent, however, this agency has had to 
 view its work in each section of the country as temporary, using that 
 term in a flexible relation to time. As was said by the founders, it 
 was never the intent that church schools were to be competitors of the 
 public schools, rather they were to prepare the way for the latter and 
 in some places supplement them for a time. As local conditions changed 
 church schools have been closed. That there were set-backs in some 
 localities when the mission schools were withdrawn cannot be questioned, 
 but it has often been through these very difficulties that the communities 
 ultimately have had their best development. To know just the moment 
 for withdrawal is seldom easy, but that the principle of state school 
 instruction is the American way can never be denied. The closing of 
 mission schools has sometime been attended by misunderstandings, but 
 most of those closed were closed because their work was done, not 
 because the school had failed. A very recent illustration of how 
 this principle of withdrawal carries on is found in the case of a com- 
 munity in the Middle West: In 1920 the Woman's Board of Home 
 Missions placed two workers in an isolated community, miles from a 
 town or from a railroad. In the spring of 1927 these workers are 
 leaving this station, as the people are ready for new responsibilities. 
 The public school carries pupils through the Junior High School; a 
 County Agent comes in to give instruction in better agricultural methods 
 and a church built by the people with some aid from the Board of 
 National Missions is ministered to by a resident pastor. In the build- 
 ing of the church one man contributed $100 in labor, working this out 
 at twenty cents an hour — five hundred hours — and the Ladies' Aid 
 earned for the church building fund $200 by making and selling quilts. 
 This church last year sent offerings to all of the Boards of the Church 
 as well as aiding some state interdenominational work. Was it not a 
 work accomplished when the missionaries withdrew? 
 
 As public education has become more general the Board has increas- 
 ingly emphasized its boarding schools where promising boys and girls 
 are trained for leadership in their home communities. That these 
 schools are accomplishing their purpose is indicated by such reports 
 as that leadership among the Pima Indians of Arizona is provided by 
 those who have been students at the Tucson Indian Training School; 
 that the membership of the Alaskan Native Brotherhood is largely 
 made up of those who attended the Sheldon Jackson School at Sitka; 
 
 22 
 
that through the State of New Mexico graduates of Allison-James and 
 Menaul Schools are found in the places of leadership; that scores of 
 schools in remote sections of the southern mountains are having up-to- 
 date teaching and Christian influence because graduates of the Mission 
 Schools are in them as teachers. A high standard of scholastic work 
 has been maintained, but in achieving this the main reason of the Board 
 for prosecuting its work is never forgotten — the Christianizing of all 
 parts of the life of the students and the sending them out imbued with 
 the wish to serve. 
 
 Immediately at the close of the Spanish- American War Cuba in 1898 
 and Porto Rico were entered as new territory and for more than a 
 quarter of a century the Board has there carried on work similar in type 
 to that on the mainland but adapted to the special needs of the islands. 
 In 1919 the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. withdrew from Cuba 
 and turned over all its work. 
 
 Other forms of service than schools were pressed upon the Board as 
 the teachers faced conditions in their fields and as new forms of com- 
 munity service were developed in the country at large. So early as 1887 
 a small hospital was opened at Sitka in connection with the school, but 
 except for the necessary care of the children in the schools not much 
 medical work was done by the Board until about 1900. Since that time 
 through a few hospitals and by community nurses the Board has served 
 many people annually and no phase of its work has been more helpful 
 or more blessed. The need for such work in isolated sections is appalling 
 and only a limited income prevents a much larger entry into medical 
 missions. 
 
 It has not been long since social workers have discovered that leisure 
 hours are the time of danger and have developed community programs 
 that care for the social needs of the people. The Woman's Board was 
 quick to see the great opportunity in this service and soon education, 
 medical work and community service were inextricably woven into one 
 beautiful pattern of far-reaching service. 
 
 In 1927 there are reported 99 schools, 21 community stations, 13 
 medical stations, 12 doctors, 28 nurses, 53 community workers, 473 
 teachers and matrons. 
 
 In 1895 the General Assembly recommended to the Woman's Execu- 
 tive Committee that it undertake work "among people of foreign tongues 
 in the great cities ; the mining districts of Pennsylvania, and the West." 
 This work was, however, so interwoven with local agencies and there 
 were so many complications of administration that the Board which 
 felt itself committed to work among people who because of isolation 
 were easily overlooked, did not do much of this type of work. In 1920, 
 
 23 
 
however, the Board established a department of Christian Social Service 
 to co-operate with those synodical and presbyterial organizations which 
 were working among these groups, to help to standardize the work 
 and to be responsible for securing, placing and giving oversight to those 
 graduate students who wish to prepare themselves for church work 
 among foreigners, the Board having established a few scholarships and 
 fellowships for such. 
 
 The history of the mission field has been written in Annual Reports, 
 but better still it is written in churches and homes, in useful lives, in 
 transformed communities, in bodies restored in health, in minds illumi- 
 nated by the love of Christ. Were all the details written here no mis- 
 sionary library would "contain the books that should be written," for 
 not with the students in the schools or with patients in hospitals is the 
 service delimited. Like the ever widening ripples of a disturbed pool 
 the influences shall go down through the ages to the very shores of 
 Eternity. 
 
 Brave women, strong, tender and Christ-like were those who began 
 that service which today is the organized work of Presbyterian women 
 for the cause of National Missions. Their successors, too, are meeting 
 the demands of their day and carrying on to fulfill that early-chosen 
 watchword — "Our Land for Christ." 
 
 Note : — It is the Fiftieth Anniversary of women's nationally organized work for 
 Home Missions that is being celebrated, rather than any especial administrative 
 agency: we have, therefore, purposely refrained from placing in the body of this 
 article reference to the administrative changes of 1923, or from the inclusion of the 
 newer nomenclature that came into use at that time. 
 
 Following action of the General Assembly of 1922, the Board of National Mis- 
 sions was organized in May, 1923, being a consolidation of (a) the Board of Home 
 Missions, (b) the Woman's Board of Home Missions, (c) the Board of Missions 
 for Freedmen, (d) the Board of Church Erection, (e) the missionary work of the 
 Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work, (f) the Permanent Committee on 
 Evangelism and (g) the Committee on Army and Navy Chaplains. In the Board 
 of National Missions the women's and young women's missionary organizations 
 continue their financial responsibility for the work they supported through the 
 Woman's Board of Home Missions and the Board of Missions for Freedmen, this 
 work being administered through two Divisions in the Board — the Division of 
 Schools and Hospitals and the Division of Missions for Colored People. The 
 Woman's Board, with nine members, is continued as a Holding Board, pending 
 final transfer of funds, property, etc., but is no longer an administrative agency. 
 There are fifteen women members of the Board of National Missions together 
 with twenty-five men. 
 
 Price: Ten Cents 
 
 BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS 
 OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A. 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 24