The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898

Excerpt

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY, NOW A QUARTERLY.

Some of our friends write us, saying that they do not receive the "American Missionary" regularly. Perhaps these friends have not noticed the announcement that our magazine is now a quarterly and not a monthly. The last number was issued December, 1897, and this number will appear March, 1898.

We publish in this number of the magazine the annual list of our Field Workers. We take pleasure in presenting this list, believing that it will be valued, not only by the friends of these faithful workers, but by many others who will be glad to trace their names and locations. Our workers have been epoch makers. They entered upon the work during the first year of the war and followed the advance of the Union armies, and when at length the slaves became freemen, these teachers and preachers were their guides in the paths of industry, knowledge and piety. The work was opportune, for it needed a strong influence to direct their uncertain steps in the new life that broke so strangely upon them. Many of these workers have devoted well-nigh their active life to this work, and gray hairs are adorning the temples of some who entered the service in their early and vigorous youth. Their achievements are the ample reward for their self-denying and useful labors and are found in neat homes, family purity, skilled industry in shop and on farm, in well-prepared teachers and in educated and pious ministers of the gospel. Their work is multiplied by the successful toil of hundreds and perhaps thousands who have been trained by them. May God bless these workers and the peoples among whom they toil—the Emancipated Slaves, the Indians on our Western border, the Highlanders on our Southern mountains, the Chinese on the Pacific Coast, and the heroic family in far-off Alaska.

OUR INDUSTRIAL WORK.

The American Missionary Association was a pioneer in introducing industrial training and work among the freedmen of the South. In May, 1867, the Association purchased a tract of land on which the buildings at Hampton, Va., are now located, and agricultural and industrial pursuits were immediately inaugurated. In 1872 a charter was obtained and the property was turned over by the Association to a Board of Trustees, and Gen. Armstrong, with his remarkable enthusiasm and administrative skill, pushed the institution forward in its marvelous career.

At Talladega, Ala., in 1867, the Association purchased a large building, with forty acres of land attached, and the young men were set to tilling the soil under systematic training. In 1877 the Winsted Farm, of 160 acres, was secured, and ten years later the Newton Farm was added, the whole tract now containing 270 acres. On this large farm is carried forward every variety of agricultural industry in the preparation of the soil, in drainage and irrigation, rotation of crops and the raising of stock. An institute for farmers of the county is statedly held under the College auspices, and annual meetings of several days' length are conducted in three or four of the counties of the State....