Newspaper Page Text
%
May 1, 1912 ] THE]
REPORT OP COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION.
, j (Continued from Page 5.)
Financial Statement.
During the year 110,424.66 has been added to the
Endowment Fund, making the totai amount of inVested
funds |315,234.91. Again we wish to emphasize
the fact that every cent of interest from this
Fund goes into the Annual Fund of Ministerial Relief,
and is used to meet the present needs of the work.
Legndes.
nurlno ?V, r. ~ ? rr~ ?
.?.~o wo j tai a afein:} ui fu,uuu WilS 1611 L)y E
member of the congregation of the l'irst church,
Louisville, to the Executive Committee for the Endowment
Fund, which will become available in a
few months. We hope pastors and Sessions will remind
the members of their churches and congregations
that the General Assembly heartily commends
this fund for gifts and legacies.'
These gifts and legacies will be held as "Memorial
Funds," if so desired, and will be reported annually.
.1 . . i : ...U
4. The Assembly's Home and School.
Soon after the meeting of the last General Assembly
a Sub-Committee on the Assembly's Home
and School was appointed. To them was given the
special oversight of matters nf detail In rompH tn
local management of the institution, subject to the
supervision of the Executive Committee.
We have been seriously handicapped on account
of finances, and while we have paid one of the notes
for $1,530 due, have been compelled to borrow $2,575.55,
at bank to meet the running expenses of the
Home and School.
The college building is antiquated and inadequate.
There is an entire lack of chemical and physical
laboratories and other forms of apparatus, which are
demanded in order that either a school or college
may do Its work.
! We are unable to report a large income from outside
pupils. In recent years there has been vast improvement
in. the Schools, and especially the High
School, of Fredericksburg, and last September the
State opened a new Normal School there, thus providing
excellent educational facilities for the com.
munity, and giving formidable competition to the
school and college. The President writes: "In some
instances, owing to the competition with the Normal
and other schools of the. city, we have been compelled
to cut prices."
The Home Department.
The aid from the Home and School supplements
the amounts given these bereaved families from the
funds of Ministerial Relief and Foreign Missions, and
the amount of the latter Committee for the education
of the children of foreign missionaries.
xsuriug me year ** cnuarea izu. girls apd 24 boys),
have been boarded with 18 mothers, who live at
Fredericksburg, who have been furnished $4,376.02
tuition, medical fee, etc.
Forty-nine of tho children have 'mothers living at
Fredericksburg, 9 have mothers lving in other places,
three have neither father nor mother living.
Seven of these are children of four bf our deceased
Foreign Missionaries, and seven are the children of
four living missionaries.
Of the children at Fredericksburg, 27 are between
the ages of 15 and 22.
?- * - ? " " ~
luom wtio ieteivuQ ior me iiome an<i scnooi this
year $18,464?a decrease of $2,255.69 compared with
last year.
The total cost of the Home Department for the year
has been $8,953.34.
Fredericksburg School and College Department.
Twenty-one of the children are in the college?7
seniors, 7 juniors, 3 sophomores and 4 freshmen.
Nineteen are in the Preparatory?two in the last year,
nine in the third year, five in the second, three In
the first. Twenty-one are in the primary.
The college property purchased January 1, 1910,
for $18,000 still carries a mortgage of $10,940, and
another note of $2,575.55 is now due.
The total cost of the College Department for the
. year beginning April 1, 1911,'and ending March 31,
1912, has been $11,823.37?making the total cost of
the Home and School $20,758.71.
6. Schools and Colleges.
During the. year $3,102.58 has been contributed for
current expenses, as against $3,174.05 last year, a decrease
of $71.47.
Dr. Boggs, Secretary, has laid special emphasis
upon the raising of the Schools and Colleges Loan
Fund. ThlB Fund as reported to the General Assembly
last year was $4,956.17. During the year
$1,714.54 has been added, making the total amount
$6,670.71.
Appreciation.
The cordial thankB of the General Assembly are
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SC
due Mr. John Stites, who for the past eight years
0. s given so liberally of his time and ability as
Treasurer of the Executive Committee. Mr. Stites has
. e-c.ed no compensation for the large amount of
service he has rendered. His business experience,
his deep interest in the work, and his self-denying
labors in this exacting position have been of the
richest value to the work.
Henry H. Sweets, Secretary.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESR
PIERIAN CHURCH, U. S., FOR 1912.
lAunageu.j
Again we are called upon to record, with grateful
recognition of God's goodness, the blessing that has
attended the labors of our missionaries, performed in
many cases in the midst of great trials and difllculties,
throughout the year. The total number of additions
by baptism reported from all our fields is
3,510. This is an average of about 39 for each ordained
missionary. Prom every field comes the report
of wider open doors and larger opportunities and
greater promise of larger harvests from the sowing
of previous years.
Africa.
Owing to the small number of missionaries on the
field, no extensive evangelistic trips could be made
to the many out-stations in this field, and for that
reason the mission reports a smaller number of accessions
to church membership than were reported
last year. Notwithstanding this fact the work has
taken on larger proportions, many new villages have
been reached by native evangelists, and requests for
teachers and preachers continue to be made by deputations
from all parts of the field. Our African field
is wide open to our Gospel effort, and no means
should be spared that can possibly be employed for
entering every open door that has been set before
us through the work of God's Spirit on the hearts of
this people. The new station, two hundred miles to
the east of Luebo, iMutato,' has been opened by a
visit from Dr. Prichard, who has placed a native
evangelist in charge of the work.
Political conditions have been greatly improved
under the new regime, but there is still room for improvement
in certain quarters.
An event of commanding interest in the history of
the mission was a visit from Bishop Dambuth and Dr.
Gilbert, of the M. E. Church, South, who, by our invitation,
are prospecting with a view to the establishment
of a mission of that church in territory contiguous
to that occupied by our mission.
Brazil.
The missionaries in Northern Brazil deserve our
special sympathy and commendation on account of
the spirit in which they have carried on their work
under the most discouraging conditions. Political
disturbances, failure of crops, and general business
depression have made it especially difficult for the
native ministers in this region to secure a support
while carrying on their work. In spite of these conditions
two of the churches in this mission have undertaken
the full SUDDOrt of their nastors. and three
others have been so grouped as to make them independent
of foreign help.
The Girls' School at Pern'ambuco has prospered in
spite of the lack of all suitable equipment. The personality
of Miss Reed and of her assistant, Miss Douglass,
has from the beginning given a character to this
school that has made it more or less independent of
equipment so far as securing patronage is concerned.
The nuns opened an opposition school under the
patronage of the Bishop of Pernambuco, but in spite
of their superior physical equipment and of all the
influence which the Catholic Church could bring to
bear, they enrolled less than thirty pupils, while
our school enrolled more than one hundred.
The East and West Brazil missions both report a
year of encouragement in their work. The Lavras
school continues to furnish hopeful young men, who
enter the Theological Seminary at Campinas as candidates
for the ministry. As all these young men
have had the very desirable training given in the industrial
department of the school, it is expected that
they will furnish us with a more independent and
self-reliant type of native ministers than we could
hope to develop under a plan which gave the students
no opportunity of self-support.
China.
A Special Conference on China of the Foreign Mission
Boards of the United States and Canada was held
in New York on February 29th, at which about sixty
delegates and a considerable number of missionaries
were present. It was the unanimous judgment of
this conference that the recent revolution in that
empire was one of tho greatest movements in human
) U T H (495) 11
history, and that the time long worked and prayed
for had come, bringing the opportunity, as expressed
in one of tue papers read at tae conlerence, "of meeting
an inquiring people with the life and light they
are seeking." 'lhat this nation, wuich heretofore
has mantained an attitude of hostility to all foreigners,
including missionaries, and of supreme contempt
lor tnose of Its own people who had professed Christianity,
should now be gladly welcoming the leadership
and advice of missionaries in political aB well
as in religious matters, and should have started upon
its new career as a republic with a thoroughly tested
Christian at its head, is a state of affairs that must
be regarded as little short of miraculous.
The prevalence of famine in even a worse form than
that of the two previous ones has been a distressing
feature of the situation. This condition has prevailed
chiefly within the bounds of the North Klangsu
Mission and the members of that mission have given
themselves, as heretofore, unremittingly and heroically
to the work of famine relief.
A pleasing feature of the work of the Boys' College
carried on at Hangchow In co-operation with the
Central China Mission of the Board in New York, is
that the four members of the graduating class all
volunteered for the work of the ministry and expect
to attend the seminary at Nanking as soon as conditions
admit of the resumption of that work.
Cuba.
Our work in Cuba has been very gref-tly crippled
by the loss of three of our missionary families on
account of serious illness, leaving only three male
members of the mission now on the held. Owing to
our financial condition it has been impossible for the
Committee to supply these losses by sending out reinforcements.
As an offset to this discouraging feature
of the work, the mission is rejoicing in the acquisition
of three young men to the ranks of the
native ministry, all of whom are now doing effective
'work.
The work of the schools has been greatly hindered
by inadequate equipment, but in spite of that fact
they have been an important factor in building up the
church. If they could only be adequately equipped,
the work which they could accomplish in the develop,
tnent of a native ministry and leadership would
greatly hasten the coming of the day when the church
in Cuba would need to ask no further help of the
'Mother Church, except to be remembered in its
prayers.
* Japan.
While there has hean nn nh.nnmnnol
work in Japan, the general situation in that field is
encouraging, with the exception that some compiles- . Y
tions have arisen in connection with the action of the
government in requiring of pupils in the schools the
observance of certain religiouB rites in connection
with the ancestral worship that are deemed by many
to be inconsistent with a profession of Christianity.
The report from the field, however, states that this
action of the government has been very severely .
criticised by the native press, and it is believed that
public sentiment will very soon bring about a change I
in the situation.
The plan of affiliation between our mission and the 1 H
native church, adopted one year ago, has demonstrat- j
ed what was claimed for it originally, that it was
the plan that would secure the fullest practical co- j
operation with the least possible friction. The rec- I-';
ognition of the full autonomy of the native church
in the management of its own affairs has always been j
a fundamental principle of our missionary policy.
Twenty students have attended the Theological B
School at Kobe, two of whom are in the graduating j
class this year. We regard this work as second in I
importance to none that any Christian mission is I
doing in Japan at the present time. 'A fierce battle is 1
being fought in Japan for the maintenance of the
fundamental truths of Christianity, and the preven.
tion of the establishment of a so-called church with |
a creed made up of a composite of Christian ethics 11
only, with the principle features Qf Buddhism, Shin- 1
toism, and scientific Rationalism. In the work of SLs^
preserving a form of Christianity for Japan In which Bn
its fundamental truths are retained, we do not hea- H||
itate to say that we believe the work of the Kobe 1
school to be essential.
Korea.
The same condition of readiness to hear the Gospel I
is found, among the people of Korea that has prevail- I
ed in that field for several years. The spirit of revival
still prevails in the native church, manifesting H
itself in the intense eagerness of the people in their H
attendance at religious services and meetings for
Bible study, and in the same enthusiastic evangells- f
tic fervor that has characterized this church from the B
beginning.
(Continued next week.)
i