A Review of the Work in the Southern Union Conference
By George I. Butler
In the educational work there are many encouraging omens. The prospects before the Graysville Training School, as they appear at present, were never so encouraging. Those best acquainted with the conditions think we shall have the largest attendance there has been at Graysville since the origin of the school. They are having considerable anxiety in regard to how the pupils may be accommodated. Some embarrassments that seemed quite perplexing last year have cleared away. The school has certainly been doing excellent work. Those who came from Graysville to Nashville, to assist in the work of canvassing, Bible readings, etc., have made excellent improvement, and are developing into valuable laborers. Elder and Mrs. Haskell, who have had charge of the work, have expressed themselves as highly pleased with these pupils, and say that they have never seen any, in all their experience, more promising. The Graysville school has a great hold upon the affections of our people in this Southern Union Conference, and our hopes for it were never brighter. We trust the coming year will be a success beyond any in the past. If so, we shall have occasion to thank God and take courage. The Huntsville Training School
The Huntsville Training School, we trust, has passed a very trying crisis. We are looking for a new era of prosperity in its history. The visit of Sister White, connected as it was with the gathering of the executive committee of the Southern Union Conference and the board of the Huntsville Training School, at Huntsville, June 20-23, was a very encouraging and important occasion. We had been looking forward for several months to this visit, knowing that Sister White would come south, and probably visit Huntsville. This school, which had been established for about nine years, like all new institutions, had various difficulties to meet in its progress. These difficulties cluster around an institution established to benefit the colored people, in greater profusion, perhaps, than in almost any other undertaking. Few who have not been connected with such a work can comprehend and understand the peculiar difficulties and perplexities which arise. Our schools are usually sustained by a liberal tuition, and by means received for board and for other expenses, but with our colored work it is very different. Very few, indeed, can pay anything. A large farm of three hundred and sixty acres had been purchased, and some buildings provided, but on account of a scarcity of means, there was a great lack of many things very essential to the prosperity of the school. The last two or three years the attendance was about fifty. Instead of increasing, there was perhaps some little decrease. We are far from wishing to criticize or find fault with any one. On the contrary, we give credit for good motives and earnest endeavors. But the difficulties to be met were not overcome. The school should be far more prosperous than this statement would imply. We felt that it was a great privilege to have one present through whom light from the Lord has often been communicated to this people to help our poor human understanding and experience to more clearly discern what would tend to the building up of the institution. We feel sure that light has been given, and that a new order of things will be seen, if our brethren and sisters generally will help with their means, to make the necessary improvements. With the instruction furnished, we hope to see a good degree of advancement. Elder F. R. Rogers who for years past has had much experience in connection with work among the colored people of Mississippi, and who has suffered great hardships, and made great sacrifices in connection with it, has been chosen to take the leading part in the management of the institution. The faculty has not yet been fully elected, but steps are being taken to bring in those who, we hope, can be very helpful in the progress of the work. The school will open September 21, and the action of the executive committee has been taken that the school should be continuous, with no long vacations, there being only short ones between different terms, so that the colored students coming there will be under the influence of the school continuously until their education is finished. With the long vacations that have been given each summer, the students have gone out to the world from under the influences of the school, and in many instances their interest has never returned, and they are lost to the school and to the cause. We hope this evil will now be prevented. The servant of the Lord stated, emphatically, that there ought to be a hundred students present the coming year, and that the school ought to grow until at least two hundred or two hundred and fifty would be in attendance. Influences are at work in the South, in various places, which are designed to hinder the instruction of the colored people by the whites, and confine their instruction to that which they can receive from their own race. Such a course is being indorsed by the legislatures of some States already. Efforts have been made, even in Tennessee, to bring about such a result, but up to the present without avail. How long it will be before such a plan is indorsed by State authority we can not tell, but everything indicates that our work for the colored people should be done rapidly, so that when such a condition does exist, they may be amply supplied with teachers; and how can this be done unless they are trained and prepared for future work in our training-schools? Our people ought to awaken to the situation, and be aroused concerning this matter. We beseech our people to furnish us the means to put the school in proper condition so that one hundred pupils can be taught there the coming season. Provisions have not yet been made whereby the school could accommodate so many, but we are anxious to enter upon the work of repairing and building, so that this increase of facilities can be secured. If it is not accomplished, the fault will be with those who have not furnished the means for this purpose, for we are ready here to immediately take hold of this work of preparation. Sister White’s counsel was that not a foot of that land should be sold, but that it should all be used for the upbuilding of the colored work, as was designed when this institution was originated. By this instruction many doubts and fears have been set at rest, and we do believe that God will be greatly pleased as we move forward in the establishment of this institution for a great work in the future. It is the only colored training-school in the denomination. Shall it be left to struggle along in weakness and inefficiency? or will our people rally to help in this work? The Colored Work in the South
The colored work in the South demands the deep interest of our people. It can not be left merely to our comparatively small white constituency in the South. To sustain our own white work is all that could be reasonably expected of us in the South, while doing a reasonable proportion for the sustenance of the colored work. Our white people in the North have the same obligation placed upon them that we of the South have. We are not responsible for the present condition of things here, any more than they are in the North. Quite a portion of our southern constituency are northern people who have moved here, while we also have excellent brethren and sisters who have embraced the truth in the South. Our Union Conference Committee has unanimously appealed, in an earnest petition to the General Conference Committee, to appoint one day in each year throughout the whole of our country for the raising of funds to support the colored work in the great southern field. This matter has been before our people for years. The Lord has given us line upon line, counsel upon counsel, and earnest entreaties to take hold of this work, and give it the consideration it demands. The Lord looks with sympathy and the20deepest interest upon this unfortunate people, who have not had the opportunities we have had, and our people will not be clear from guilt unless this light is heeded. We do trust our General Conference Committee will give heed to this earnest petition, and appoint such a day, so that we can appeal to our people everywhere in this country to assist in building up the colored work. The funds can be sent here, and a committee appointed by the General Conference will divide them equitably, according to the different needs in the colored field. This will save various appeals for particular objects. This is, in every respect, a consistent course to take in order to meet a great want. We trust we shall not be disappointed.