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Page 3
* * * * *
"KEEP PEGGING AWAY."
Abraham Lincoln packed into these homely words the expression of his
heroic faith and indomitable perseverance. When victory forsook our
armies, when elections at the North pronounced against the
administration, and when timid and disloyal people were clamoring for
"peace at any price," this great man, discerning clearly that only by
arms could the rebellion be crushed, acted upon this motto. He did not
mean by this that a mere idle pretense of doing something should be
kept up; he meant a steady pressure growing constantly more intense and
effective; when volunteering flagged, he offered bounties; when bounties
failed, he resorted to drafting. The army _must be_ kept up and it must
be fully equipped, and never did a more splendid army tread the earth,
and never was money poured out with so lavish a hand. The end came, and
it was worth all it cost.
The war settled two things--the unity of the nation and the freedom of
the slave. One thing it did not settle--the future of the Negro. That
question must be settled by his Christian education. This is just as
plain to thoughtful men as it was to Lincoln that military force only
could save the nation. But now as then, there are men who are
discouraged and who say that this process of education will take a long
time, and so, once more, the air is full of impracticable remedies--to
take the ballot from the Negro--to transport him to Africa, to the West,
to the North! The cry is, "the white man's supremacy" at any price. Now,
again, is the time for Lincoln's motto, "keep pegging away," and that
not merely in a perfunctory way, but by pushing more and more
vigorously. In this moral warfare, volunteers must be encouraged. There
is no need of special bounties, nor of drafting; only furnish the means
to meet the meagre salaries, and the recruits will crowd to the field in
abundance, but their numbers _must be_ greatly enlarged. Hence the great
need, as in the dark days of the war, of multiplying the means of
equipment. The money should be poured out with a lavish hand to sustain
a vastly enlarged working force. Money can never be spent at a better
time, nor for a better purpose.
* * * * *
$500,000.
This is the sum recommended for the use of this Association by the
National Council, and by our own Annual Meeting. These figures have not
only these indorsements, but also the far greater one of the needs of
the field. Some of our schools are packed to overflowing and scholars
are turned away because there is no room, places are opening for
enlarged church work which we ought to have the means of entering, and
industrial facilities should be increased. The need for such enlargement
is illustrated in part by the items which follow.
* * * * *
CALLS FOR ENLARGEMENT.
Our schools, with scarcely an exception, are asking for more teachers
for their over-crowded rooms, and two or three pulpits stand vacant
because we have not suitable pastors for them. We are able to report
great enthusiasm along every line of our work and a spirit of uncommon
consecration among all our teachers this year. We are having a noble
year of thorough work.
From Greenwood, S.C., comes this word: "For the last month we have had
over two hundred and thirty students, and have refused between
seventy-five and one hundred applications for admission because there
was not one inch of room for them."
Our school at Meridian has outgrown the building erected for it, and has
overflowed into the church. It is another illustration of the fact that
the children of the emancipated freedmen are as earnest for education as
were their fathers and mothers when they swarmed into the temporary
schools provided for them.
A letter from Wilmington, N.C., says: "Without another teacher, I do not
know what to do, unless it be to send away about twenty-five pupils.
This I would be very sorry to do, as I would hardly know which ones to
send and there would be no school for them to re-enter, as the public
schools are full to overflowing; besides, many would consider it a
calamity to be thus dropped out."
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