The PILGRIM MEMORIAL FUND $5,000,000-To Provide for the Veterans of our Ministry A S we swing into the New Year that marks the three hundredth anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, how does the Pilgrim Memorial Fund stand? The states that at this writing, December tenth, have gone over the top, are, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Virginia and the colored churches of the South. Five others are so nearly across that it is safe to say that by January first, they may be added to the list also-Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York and Wisconsin. Massachusetts is pouring in the pledges, but her quota is so large that she may not reach it all before January first. In many of these states mentioned above, as well as throughout New England, and in Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania, there will be conducted during January, a clean-up campaign, in which the finishing touches will be put on quotas not quite raised, and scattered churches, which for various. have had to wait, will be visited. Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota which were the first to contribute.to the Memorial Fund on the smaller plans that were originally laid out, will be ready early in 1920, to reopen their campaigns on the larger quotas now asked of them and to double the gifts they have already made. Into some of the states the campaign has not yet been carried. It will begin as soon after January first as they can be successively reached by the teams of solicitors. These will comprise the entire Southeast (with the exception of the colored churches which are raising their share in a combined and splendidly successful effort), the entire Pacific Slope from Idaho to Arizona, and the Territory of Hawaii. With the exception of Hawaii, where the Pilgrim Memorial Fund may be merged in the celebration of the Centenary of Hawaiian Missions, to be held in 1920 also, it is hoped that February will see the completion of the great canvass in practically all the states. How much has been secured? Three millions and a half have been checked up so far. By January first it will be over the four million mark and well on the way to the five million minimum desired. Let us have another month's time before we attempt to prophesy how much over the five millions the campaign will carry us. That we have the five million goal in plain sight is enough to make us joyful. What comes afterwards (and it is coming) will make a happy overflow. It is interesting to note that the subscriptions tabulated to date show that eleven of our churches have made subscriptions totalling over fifty thousand dollars each, and one of these churches has turned in pledges totalling almost three times this amount. The members of one of our New England churches have established a memorial fund of one thousand dollars to each of the pastors in the history of its work. The fine spirit of our fellowship is evidenced daily in the reports from the various fields of our work. Church after church exceeds, doubles and even trebles, its quota and individuals. make gifts which we know mean a real sacrifice. We feel very much encouraged and have every reason to hope for the entire success of this long needed provision for the old age and disability of the men who have given life long service to our churches. -W. W. S. THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION 1920 The A. M. A. wishes a Happy New Year to all to whom these greetings may come. To the churches affiliated with us and which have our watch and care; to our institutions and schools of whatever grade, and to the faithful teachers who are greatly helping to leaven the nation, we wish the happiness. which comes with the happenings, and we hope they may be large in their gifts. And we wish that which is far better, even the permanent joy which is not dependent upon external conditions. There is only one source for this, and it will stay whatever else may go. We wish you joy for the New Year. It will interest our readers to acquaint themselves with the Executive Committee of the A. M. A. Until 1921 John R. Rogers, Chairman. Ferdinand Q. Blanchard, Ohio. Until 1923 J. Percival Huget, New York. Lucien C. Warner, New York. Lewis B. Moore, Washington, D. C. After six years of distinguished service as President of the American Missionary Association, the Rev. Henry L. King, LL.D. of Oberlin College, now moderator of the National Council, has resigned the position which he has so highly honored. The Rev. Nehemiah Boynton, D.D., a former moderator of the National Council, was unanimously elected President of the Association to succeed him. Dr. Boynton is no new friend of the Association, having given ten good years into service as a former member of the Executive Committee. The Association greets and welcomes Dr. Boynton as its President. The Association welcomes to Charimanship of the Executive Committee, Mr. John Rogers, who has been for eleven years one of its most active and faithful members. We make our acknowledgment of the unceasing devotion and the untiring service of Dr. L. C. Warner, who has laid the whole country under obligation for his wise and far seeing efforts in our Educational and Christian Missions. The A. M. A. was born as a protest not only against slavery and slave holding in the South but also against the acquiescence of religious missionary societies in the North. But it was a Christian protest. It did not vituperate. It did not scold. It did not call the government a covenant with hell. The men who founded it were Christian men who worked on the principles of the Gospel. As earnest as they were sincere, their protest was constant, and while they kept the pressure of righteousness on without ceasing, their controversy never departed from the teaching and example of their Master and Teacher. This was their attitude and the condition, chiefly that of protest when the war came. At once they found themselves a providential society duly organized to follow the armies with their schools, and when peace came they were already on the spot. It would have been contrary to human nature that these schools should not have encountered a certain amount of hostility. It was entirely natural that they should have been looked upon with a general suspicion. The defeated South after its most heroic struggle for its cherished institution did not know the spirit of the A. M. A. It could not be expected that these teachers from the North should be welcome. The South did not then believe that slaves ought to be free. It did not believe in Northern theories, that as a class the Negroes could be educated, or that they should be. It feared the result of our endeavor, and it was entirely honest in its fears. A trifle more than half a century has passed. The pupils who began then in their early years are now parents of pupils who are pushed on through their own courses of education into life. They have almost without exception proved the contention of the A. M. A. in planting its schools in their good and honest lives. Many have led lives of great usefulness as teachers to others, and some have shown attainments that do not shrink from comparison with the educated of other races. The theories and practice of the A. M. A. have been fully justified in the acknowledged results. The change which has been brought about in the condition of those who were heirs of slavery in their mode of life, in their homes, in their acquisitions and powers has been paralleled in the attitude of mind on the part of the white people who have lived where all this was going on, and have seen how groundless were their fears, and how mistaken were their ideas of the capacity of the Negro people as a class to take on whatever is best in modern civilization, both industrially and professionally. In the vicinity of our communities where they have seen the beginnings, the methods and the results, the Southern people are most cordial friends of the institutions which began with their distrust. Repeatedly, leading citizens of the localities in which our institutions are have acknowledged to the writer of this, that in the early years they looked upon our schools with prejudice more or less intense. They acknowledge they had little faith in the possibilities of the average Negro, though they realized that some were much beyond the average in their capacities. They believed that we were entirely wrong in our estimates, and were attempting too much in going beyond an elementary education for an elemental people, but the Southern people are a generous people, and those who are themselves above the average are noble and frank to confess their change of mind and their readiness to accept what has been established. There is nothing more unjust in opinion than prejudice, and nothing harder to overcome, but among the superior people it has largely been overcome as far as our schools are concerned and where our institutions are located we re longer expect feelings or opinions that are otherwise than friendly. We are among friends. They cooperate and encourage, and we are glad that we have stayed on through evil report unto good report. It is a great satisfaction nov when all of our institutions have upon their Boards of Trustees well known and highly honored representative Southern people who are in hearty sympathy both with our purpose and our methods and who meet with us in conference with frank and free exchange of views. We come year by year to understand each other, and it heartens us to be understood. "LEST WE FORGET" AN APPRECIATION An address delivered by Principal S. G. Atkins, of the Slater Industrial and Normal School, well known and able Negro Educator before the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools. Fo OR some time I have noted an apparent indifference about or forgetfulness of the service of those pioneer educational workers who at the close of the Civil War came on the field in the South even before the smoke of battle had cleared away; a tendency to forget those Northern men and women who came South with a marvelous self-denial and with a noteworthy spirit of consecration, and often with a demonstration of courage that was truly heroic. Without any purpose to deliver a presidential address which might touch upon matters that will be more effectively discussed by others during these sessions, I desire to give a brief appreciation of these benefactors of a race, who, as such, were notable patriots and friends of humanity. These were the men and women, most of them representative of the great missionary societies, that made the present days possible. these days of Negro leadership and Negro self-reliant endeavor, these days which we now enjoy. They kept the ter controversialists. It is highly commendable that the race should assert itself becomingly and should strike out for itself in every direction which may signify the evolution of race life; it is a high compliment to these missionary friends that Negro workers and leaders have been produced who have been prepared to take up the work as these educational missionaries, having fought a good fight, have retired from the field or gone to their great reward; and those of us who are the immediate heirs of this inheritance should never forget what they did here" nor ever underestimate the contribution they have made to the redemption of our race. I desire that we may pause here as we recount our successes and take stock of the future as we study the statistics, the striking statistics of progress and of our great race ad vance. It would be a labor of love to work up a complete roll and pay due tribute to each and all of them. Some day I may carry out this suggestion and I shall greatly enjoy making an extended exhibit of what they did and of the results of their labors. What a splendid fruitage has been the result of their magnificent work! This fruitage looms large and be comes of priceless vaue as we check up on the work of Negro men and women who have succeeded to the management of great schoos, who have become the leaders of great ecclesiastical organizations, who have become the teachers, preachers, physicians, lawyers, and business men and women of the millions of this race that are now registering a progress that is one of the marvels of the times. I wish to advert briefly to certain characteristics, of these pioneer educational workers and missionaries. Their motives were altruistic in the highest degree. They could indeed be written as those who loved the Lord for verily they proved that they loved their fellow-men. They were not bit They sometimes became interesting almost sharp-opponents, but always with a fraternal spirit and a constructive purpose. Armstrong and Rendall and Cravath had no quarrels. It is also an interesting fact that Joseph C. Price, the greatest Negro apostle of higher education, and Booker T. Washington, the greatest Negro apostle of industrialism, who were in a sense the immediate disciples of those who represented the two great currents of educational opinion in the eighties, were themselves good. friends and co-laborers. These noble men and women were noted for their practical common sense. They were prudent in their relation to the difficult and critical environment in which they moved and operated. They demonstrated a fine type of diplomacy, even when they were least inclined to bow the knee to Baal. As a part of this word of appreciation I desire to say that we should not forget those noble Southern white men and women without whose assistance and encouragement it would have been well-nigh impossible for these men and women from the North to have remained in this field. Men of the Haygood and Curry and Dillard type, who had broad minds and warm hearts, who had the standing that made their friendly voices powerful for every good work undertaken in our Southland, and who were big enough and Christian statesmen enough to enter into diplomatic relations with these ambassadors from the court of brotherly love these ambassadors whose credentials read as if they had been dictated and signed by the martyr President himself, I desire to close this appreciation with observations on what I consider to be their most noteworthy characteristic. These Northern friends were ever true to their major motive, the |