The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 09, September, 1896 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 09, September, 1896Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 09, September, 1896
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
The question may be asked, What is the American Missionary Association
doing along these lines of self-help and independence? Much has been
done, and is being done. The Association has not said much, but it is
doing much. This is better than saying much and doing little. At the
present time, when much is said about the industrial development of
the South, there is danger of following the crowd whose ideals are not
the highest. The popular cry is for a rejuvenated South, a South with
prosperous mills and factories, and the Negro with it. The Association
has wisely kept out of this, and yet has done more than any other
organization toward the industrial independence of the people. It was
the first to start industrial schools for the Negroes. Its first
industrial school was founded at Talladega, Ala., in 1867, where it
now works about 300 acres of land. Modern farming in its most
important branches is taught here. In connection with the school are
popular lectures, which are listened to, and scattered by the students
throughout the country. White and black farmers are being improved by
them. The instructor in farming, a graduate of the Amherst
Agricultural College, is both scientific and practical. In the same
school, at Talladega, young men and women are taught various other
branches of industry.
Tougaloo Institution, in Mississippi, has a farm of 500 acres, which
supplies cities in the Northwest with her produce. There are no less
than fifty industrial schools under the American Missionary
Association, not to mention independent schools, which are largely
fostered by Congregational influence. The reflex influence of these
industrial schools upon the whites is marvelous.
While we labor to plant seeds of true manhood in the hearts of the
people, we recognize the fact that there must be a going-out and a
taking-in. The involution of the race must precede its evolution. It
therefore requires time to see fruits. Time will tell; it is already
telling. With boards devising, and schools, churches, and pastors
formulating, methods to bring about the solution of the problem, we
shall reap an abundant harvest. When it is known that the larger
portion of the colored race in the South is still living on the
plantations, practically untouched by the Christian influences of this
century, living without God and not touched by our mission work, it
accentuates the imperative duty of the churches and pastors of
churches to hasten the work of self-support. In concluding, I
emphasize the following points:
1. That the work of educating a race to manly independence requires
time as well as energy.
2. That it behooves all teachers of the race to do their utmost to rid
the minds of the people of those ideas of slavery which strike a blow
at their independence.
3. That the position taken by the American Missionary Association is
the true one in preparing the people for self-support, and thus toward
the self-support of our churches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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