Why will not Christian people appreciate these facts and amply sustain the American Missionary Association in its noble work of planting and strengthening the educational institutions which operate to change for the better the environment of the colored race in this country? All improvement must be by an influence from without, which shall quicken and inspire, which shall teach and guide; and there is no such influence comparable with that which comes from the combination of schools and churches. * * * * * TEMPERANCE TEXT-BOOKS IN OUR SCHOOLS. Our institutions have always been temperance societies. Mr. John M. Stearns, Sec. of the Nat. Temp. Soc., at its recent annual meeting, reporting his tour through the South, said that, as he was talking to the students at Fisk University, Prof. Spence reported that every student was required to sign the total abstinence pledge or to leave the institution. At Atlanta University, he found that all of the 310 students had signed the same pledge; and this is also true of all our other schools. Then our students, as they go everywhere in their vacations, become temperance propagandists, organizing societies, circulating the literature of the reform and securing signatures to the pledge. But, during the past year, our Executive Committee have thought to take a step forward, and so have voted to require the use of some temperance text-book in all our schools. Mr. Stearns found them introduced into many, and by another year they will be found in all. The Atlanta University has already had Dr. Richardson’s Temperance Lesson Book in use for two or three years, to the highest satisfaction of all concerned. The examination of the class in this book in the presence of the State Board of Examiners was pronounced by a visitor the best temperance lecture he had ever heard. Let such text-books go into all the schools of the South, and they will hasten on a revolution. * * * * * _The Roanoke Collegian_, of Salem, Va., referring to the John F. Slater Fund, says: “The most needed _right_ of the negro now is his ability to _write_.” * * * * * BENEFACTIONS. John B. Eldridge, of Hartford, Conn., leaves by will $20,000 to Mt. Holyoke Seminary, and $15,000 to Carleton College, Minn. Ex-Gov. Chas. H. Hardin, the founder of Hardin College, has given $19,000 to build a new wing to the edifice. Mrs. J. S. Herrick, of Madison, Wis., has given $10,000 towards the Professorship Fund of Chicago Seminary. Senator Joseph E. Brown, of Atlanta, Ga., has given $50,000 to the Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Ky. Mrs. Ella J. Wheeler, of Boston, has given $30,000 for the endowment of the Friends’ School in Providence. Edwin C. Litchfield, who founded the observatory at Hamilton College, has just given it $2,000 for additions, and has assumed the payment of the salary of an assistant for Prof. Peters.