VOL. XXVI

N the month of May comes once more the Annual Meeting of the Woman's Board, full announcement of which is made by the secretary in this number of the HOME MISSION MONTHLY. We are to meet

VVV in Louisville, Kentucky

for the first time in the real South-and are looking forward with keen anticipation to greeting our warmhearted Southern members in their own beautiful home land. That they are quite as eager is evident from a message from the chairman of arrangements who, in assuring us of her deep personal interest, says: "We are very sincerely glad that you are to come. It is the first time since 'the great division' that the General Assembly has met on Southern soil, and we would like to make it a very happy time for all." It is hoped that a large body of women from all parts of the country will be assembled. These meetings are a source of information, inspiration and enthusiasm. Many, in attending, realize for the first time the greatness and the oneness of the organization of which they form a part.

SAFEGUARDING our large mission schools against fire is a question which admits of but one answer, even though that answer involves large expenditure of money. The schools among mountaineers of the South are in a number of instances several stories in height and constructed of wood. These are the Home Industrial School, the Normal and Collegiate Institute, and the Boys' Farm School of Asheville, Dorland Institute at Hot Springs, and Bell Institute at Walnut. In housing a large number of pupils and teachers, fire protection and escape are of the utmost importance. Most interesting reports from the expert sent to investigate conditions have been received, and four essentials for the protection of life and property-an alarm system, fire escapes, extinguishers and chemical engines-though incurring large expense, were immediately

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ordered by the Woman's Home Board, without waiting to make a special appeal for funds. Perhaps some who are especially interested in fire protection will help to answer that part of the question. At least the women representing the constituency felt it was a matter which would brook no delay since the former methods of protection had been found entirely inadequate. Fire drills are to be strictly enforced as well.

A NATIONAL campaign for Home Missions is to be carried on in the fall of 1912 with "the central feature and pivot of all, a Home Mission Week, November 17-24.' This is not to be confined to any one denomination but is to be in accordance with plans adopted by the Home Missions Council and the Council of Women for Home Missions, representing the Boards of all leading Protestant denominations. The plans, which are now in a formative stage, will be given wide publicity later, and, through simultaneous meetings throughout the country and printed matter appearing in secular and religious press, it is hoped that large things will be accomplished. It is good to know what is in store for the autumn that we may hold available both time and service.

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FOR the sake of those who are just familiarizing themselves with the organization of the Woman's Board of Home Missions, it may be well to explain the relation of the work for Freedmen to the general work of Home Missions. Although the Home Board and the Freedmen's Board are entirely separate bodies, it seemed advisable in women's societies to simplify the handling of funds by combining organizations. To accomplish this, Freedmen work was recognized as a department of the Woman's Board, though having its own secretary, located at Pittsburgh, where all administrative work is carried on in direct connection with the Freedmen's Board. Funds will be gladly received at Woman's Board headquarters in New York, but should be properly designated for Freedmen that they may be forwarded in

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bulk to the Freedmen treasury. All other communications should be addressed to the secretary of the Freedmen's Department, Mrs. Susan L. Storer, 513 Bessemer Building, Pittsburgh, Pa.

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THE topic for the month, "Freedmen," introduces one of our largest national problems. In fact, the problem of the negro is one so large that as a Nation we have but begun to handle it. It is a case where the white man must be educated as well as the colored man; the white man to an understanding of his relation to the black man and his responsibility toward him.

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THE following prayer, offered by the pastor of a church of another denomination within a stone's throw of Ingleside Seminary, one of our Presbyterian institutions for colored girls, might be called a strong argument for trained ministry: "O Lord, bless Asia and Spasia and all the Islands of the sea where the foot of man has not trod and God hisself has never heard of." The petition nevertheless may have been more acceptable than many another more perfect in outward form.

THE negro population occupy a large part of the farm land of the South and whether wage earners, tenants or land owners are producing the major part of the cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar crops of to-day. It is important that they should be made into successful farmers and our schools are more and more turning attention to agricultural training in the belief that it will work largely for the betterment of the race and the country. Mr. Booker Washington has said:

"I am proud of every achievement of my race, however insignificant-every farm purchased, every acre of land well tilled, every house well built-because I know the effort and the sacrifice they have cost, and because I know that only by the accumulation of just such humble individual efforts as these the race is going to succeed."

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IN striving for the betterment of their own race, many progressive negro women are employing methods similar to those of the white women of our country, as for example, in the organization of the Virginia Federation of Colored Women—a federa

tion of women's clubs "to secure harmony of action and co-operation among all women in raising, to the highest plane, the home, moral, and civil life of colored people in Virginia." The particular work undertaken by this State federation of Virginia is that of securing funds for the erection of an Industrial Home for Wayward Girls. Such moves as this on the part of negro women, for their own, cannot but meet with heartiest approval and good wishes. There is also a national federation of colored women which is quite in line with the call of the times for unification of action in progressive movements which aim for social, religious and moral betterment.

EACH year shows changed appearance in individuals and the community when a mission school is influencing a town. Someone has aptly said: "It pays to help make decent, law-abiding citizens of the negroes, instead of taking it for granted that the whites must be taxed to treat them as criminals.” Another person asserts that: "In a section of the State of North Carolina, where a mission school has been carried on for fourteen years, there has not been a single conviction of a negro in the criminal courts, nor one case of murder. The removal of the school would be a death blow to the better development of the people of that locality."

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WORK with the second generation is most encouraging and mission workers who devote their lives without limit of years or stint of effort are permitted to enjoy visible signs of results. Dr. and Mrs. Campbell, among the long time missionaries on the Freedmen field, are rounding out the twentieth year in charge of Ingleside and the thirty-second year of work for the colored people of Africa and the South. They rejoice in the fact that they are teaching many of the daughters of their first students and that they themselves feel little older than when they began.

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ONE of the most important Freedmen schools supported by Presbyterian women, the Mary Allen Seminary at Crockett, Texas, was in large part destroyed by fire in January last. This means heavy financial loss, for although the building was insured, the insurance money will not be adequate for rebuilding. Fortunately for the safety of