There are thirteen Woman's State Organizations which co-operate with
us in our missionary work. These are in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut,
New York, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota. Other States, also, not yet organized,
are assisting in definite lines, as Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Our Bureau of Woman's Work has for many years proved its wisdom. The
state of black womanhood and girlhood taken together is pitiful. The
permanent and uplifting Christianization and civilization to be
engrafted on the Negro race in this land, can come only as the
womanhood of that people is imbued with right principles and led to
right practices. Unless the life of the woman is reached and saved,
there can be no true religion, family life, or social status. Hence
our industrial and boarding schools for the training of girls in
domestic work, in the trades of dressmaking and such like, in the art
of cooking, the cultivation of small fruits and flowers, so that the
sacred influences of Christianity shall circle around the thousand
firesides where now everything is coarse, and ignorant, and senseless.
With our large corps of lady teachers, the Woman's Bureau, as an
intermediary between the Woman's State Association and their sisters
who are teaching in the field, and the women and girls to whom they
are sent, has proved during the year its increasing efficiency.