Your Committee upon the educational work of this Association would
congratulate its friends upon the great prosperity which has marked
the past year, and which gives such rich promise for the years to
come.
We find as causes for thankfulness:
1st. The permanent improvements to our various educational
institutions in new and better buildings and increased endowments.
2d. The growing appreciation by the colored people of these
educational privileges.
3d. The increasing confidence and sympathy of the Southern whites
in the education of the Freedmen, and in the schools founded for
them by the North, as shown by the words and deeds of prominent
individuals and the articles in leading journals.
4th. And lastly, we are devoutly thankful that the Holy Spirit has
been so manifestly present in the labors of the year, and that
revivals of religion have given evidence of God’s favor on the
work, and promise of men and women for the great missionary work
lying before the American Freedmen.
Your Committee feel constrained to urge the importance of the
following measure:
1st. This Association should concentrate its efforts upon its work
in the States, among the negro, the Indian and the Chinese, as
offering its distinctive missionary field.
2d. The friends of the Association should redouble their efforts
to put its schools upon a permanent endowed basis, and thoroughly
equip them for giving a high Christian education to the Freedmen.
3d. In view of the vast educational structure to be built from the
very foundations, the pressing importance of immediate education
for millions of illiterate children, the poverty of the South, and
the insufficiency of benevolent contributions from the North, the
National Government should be urged to immediately inaugurate some
additional and more adequate system of national aid.