Читать книгу The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy - Robert Elliott Flickinger - Страница 64

"They shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors and he shall send them a Saviour and a great one and he shall deliver them."—Isaiah.

The following appeal in behalf of the Freedmen, by Rev. A. W. Verner, D. D., president of Scotia Seminary, Concord, North Carolina, one of the five normal schools of the Presbyterian board, especially intended for girls, is so well and forcibly expressed, we are sure it will be appreciated by every reader.

"The urgent call from the black belt is the cry of souls in distress, the cry of humanity. Fifty years of unprecedented progress, in every line of industrial and intellectual pursuits and religious development, on the part of a considerable number of the colored people, show clearly, that the negro is capable of receiving and using to good advantage the education and training of the christian school."

"Industrial education, that lacks genuine christian culture, does not provide leaders of the right character to redeem the race, and many of our friends in the south do not care to open to the negro the doors of opportunity, to develop and manifest the best that is in him. It is therefore to the christian church of the north and to individuals, who have come to recognize the bond of human brotherhood, to whom this infant race still makes its appeal."

"The sad and degraded condition of great masses of the race in many localities of the south, ought to be an appeal, silent indeed but sufficiently strong, to awaken the sympathy of every one, capable of being touched by the cry of needy humanity. As a representative of the great Presbyterian church, that has called me into a very important and necessary field of her work, I earnestly appeal to our people to do more for the establishment and fostering of christian schools among the great masses of the black belt."

"The christian church and the christian school have something to give, that can be gotten nowhere else. The public school where established and industrial training where available are good and necessary. But the christian school is still needed and very greatly, to give moral and spiritual ballast to the individual. The leaven of gospel power and purity is needed, to give moral strength to the character and the highest degree of usefulness in life."