Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located. * * * * * THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY. * * * * * VOL. XXXII. DECEMBER, 1878. No. 12. * * * * * _American Missionary Association._ * * * * * ABSTRACT OF THE THIRTY-SECOND REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE A. M. A. The Report opens with an expression of thanks to God for the general prosperity of its work, obituary notices of the Rev. Silas McKeen, D. D., of Bradford, Vt., a Vice-President, and Mrs. Benjamin James, of the Mendi Mission, and a brief review of the marked progress of the last thirty-two years in the line of its aim and effort. The Freedmen. The educational work of the Association has been vigorously sustained, with increasing numbers, and at the cost of great self-denial on the part of both teachers and pupils. New buildings have been erected for the Emerson Institute at Mobile, Ala., for the Lewis High School and Norwich Chapel at Macon, Ga., for the Straight University at New Orleans, La., and for the Beach Institute at Savannah, Ga., under the supervision of Prof. T. N. Chase, of Atlanta. They are simple but commodious, and admirably adapted for their uses, better located than formerly, and cost no more than the insurance received for the buildings which they replace. The institutions of the Association are excellently located. The early educational work was, of necessity, altogether primary. As the States assumed the support of common schools, the Association gave itself more and more to Normal teaching, and has always found a demand for more teachers than its schools could furnish. A few more each year are advancing into the collegiate and professional courses. Its one Law and three Theological classes have been well sustained, and it has also co-operated with the Presbytery of Washington in the support of the Theological Department of Howard University. The practical and moral importance of the Industrial Departments is also referred to. During the year small amounts have been added to the salaries of a number of common-school teachers, graduates from its institutions, enabling them to extend the time of their school-year from three or six to nine months.