The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 04, April, 1889 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 04, April, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 04, April, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
2. From the National Government. The Government has done something in
this direction; in giving lands to the States for educational purposes
and in establishing the Freedmen's Bureau. It is urged to do more by the
passage of an Educational Bill. It has been said that there are
objections to every possible way of planting a hill of corn. But a good
deal of corn has been planted, and it grows. There are objections to any
possible Educational Bill that can be framed. Some of the funds will be
wasted, some will be expended in favoritism and some will be neglected
and not expended at all. But yet a large share of the money will be
spent and well spent, and the great good will over-balance the minor
evils. But even the appropriation, under any Educational Bill that has
been proposed, will be but a drop in the bucket.
3. Another source is from Northern charitable funds. The North owes an
immeasurable debt to both races in the South. It emancipated the slave,
and in so doing, assumed its share of the responsibility for the
consequences. It cannot shrink from the duty under the plea that it is a
Southern question, or even because some of the people at the South
protest against its interference.
The duty of the North is two-fold--educational and religious. It is
bound to aid in primary, industrial, normal and higher education. It has
the teachers and it has the money. It has a special obligation to impart
_religious_ instruction. The public school funds of the South and the
money of the National Government cannot be applied to distinctively
religious education. But there is no such restriction on the Northern
schools in the South; they can give religious instruction in all
departments, and they can train up religious teachers and preachers. The
North, too, has an urgent call to found pure and intelligent churches
among the masses in the South.
The North has not been idle in these respects. The public in both
sections of the country have, we believe, a faint conception of the
amount of money already expended in the South by Northern charitable
individuals and societies. For example, the American Missionary
Association, including some institutions which it founded and for a time
sustained, has expended $7,124,151.26; and including, also, books and
clothing and the amount collected and spent in connection with its
boarding departments, the total sum, as near as can be computed, would
be not far from _ten millions of dollars_ since 1862; and this money has
been economically and wisely expended. It is due to the Association and
to those who have supplied it with the funds, that the grandeur of its
work should be recognized. But, if now, to all this is added the amount
expended in the South by other religious bodies and by the Peabody and
Slater and Hand funds, it will be seen that a mighty force is at work,
unobtrusive as it is helpful, arousing no antagonism in the South, and
blessing in its rebound the benevolent contributors at the North.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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