346
given. Very able teachers are in attend-
ance. It is expected that altogether, fully one
hundred will be in attendance at this meeting.
Doubtless those more especially and closely
connected with the work of the Institute will
give a more full report of the gathering.
The meeting of the committee was distinct
from the meeting of the Educational Insti-
tute, and it is that particularly of which we
will speak. Some very important actions were
taken.
The Oakwood Training School
The future prospects of the Oakwood Train-
ing School of Huntsville, Ala., were very care-
fully considered, and plans were laid for carry-
ing on the work more successfully. The main
school building, which is being erected of ce-
ment blocks, is up, and the roof is now being
put on. It will be a fine building, costing
perhaps three or four thousand dollars. It
will seat upwards of a hundred pupils, and
will be a very creditable building indeed. As
soon as this building is completed, it is ex-
pected that a small sanitarium will be erected
at this place.
The work on the farm has been in progress
this spring. This, as the readers generally
know, has been a very wet, cold, and late
spring, so that things here as well as else-
where are very backward. Frosts have been
plenty, and the fruit has been somewhat in-
jured, as it has in other parts of the South
as well. The peach and strawberry crops,
which are usually quite large through this
section of the country, are injured to a great
extent, and in many places they are totally
ruined. The prospects for a fine garden on
the school farm, however, are excellent. This
farm is one of the old Southern plantations,
and from long cultivation has become worn
very badly. There are portions of it that are
very much in need of bringing up to increased
fertility. The question of increasing the pro-
ductiveness of the farm is one of the leading
questions of interest. These matters were all
very carefully and lengthily considered, and
plans are being laid for improvements.
The writer has very strong hopes for im-
provement in the affairs of the Huntsville
school under the present management. They
are mostly young people of promise and intel-
ligence, and are wide awake and ready for
improvements. Workers of this kind are
grown, and are not made instanter. If this
beautiful farm could be made as productive as
it might be, the writer believes that it would
support the whole work there. But all this
will necessitate very careful plans and perse-
vering effort, and a good deal of scientific
knowledge to bring up the place to a higher
degree of fertility, with a consequent increase
of crops.
showing very much the need of funds with
which to carry on the work. We havé great
hopes of seeing this work increase in effi-
The writer spent a day or two pre-
Many embarrassments still exist,
ciency.
vious to the meeting of the committee at
Huntsville, studying the situation, and look-
ing it over very carefully.
THE WATCHMAN
Care of Orphans and Aged People
Perhaps many of the readers of the Warcu-
MAN have heard of the new arrangement for
taking care of the orphans and the aged peo-
ple. Each Union Conference is to provide
for the orphans and the aged, helpless people
within its own territory, so that they will no
longer be cared for at the institution in DBat-
tle Creek. ‘This matter was quite carefully
considered at the time of the meeting, and
provision was made for seeing that the orphan
children coming from this field are provided
for. The recent collection taken up in be-
half of this work will very likely prove use-
ful.
The Madison School
We are all very glad that Prof. E. A. Suth-
erland was at the meeting. Most cordial
feelings prevailed between him and all the
members of the committee. The servant of
the Lord has been highly indorsing the work
being done at the Madison school, in various
communications that have recently come to
hand. Already the beneficent plan for edu-
cating worthy persons, so that they can go
out and develop self-supporting school work
are in progress, and something has been ac-
complished along this line.
This is a vast field of usefulness into which
they have entered, and we believe that a good
work will be accomplished along this line.
There are a great many portions of the South
that are very much in need of small schools.
The population of the South is very far from
being as dense as it is in the northern coun-
tries. It is a vast field down here, and sparsely
settled, and this makes it much more difficult
to establish educational facilities. An increas-
ing interest is manifested on the part of the
Southern people in educational matters, and
the work among our people along this line is
coming more and more rapidly to the front.
The servant of the Lord has time after time
endeavored to impress upon our mind the im-
portance of the Madison institution, and the
work that is being done there.
Of the $50,000 coming to the South from
the $150,000 fund, $600 was given to the work
at Madison to assist them, and to increase
their facilities for doing their work. Profes-
sor Sutherland expressed himself as being
hardly willing to accept any assistance, in
view of the difficulties under which we are
struggling here in this Southland, and the trou-
ble we have to secure means with which to
carry on the work, but they are very grateful
for the assistance rendered.
Qur Madison brethren are always welcome
to a meeting in this Southland. There is a
very warm feeling among the different confer-
ences toward them in the self-sacrificing effort
they are putting forth to build up educational
facilities in the South. We hope that this will
continue to increase.
A New Conference Paper
Another question of very deep interest came
up before the committee. It has been thought
by many that it would be well to take from the
columns of the WaArcuMAN,— which is pri-
marily a missionary paper for general circula-
tion among the people, those who are not mem-
bers of the church as well as those who are,
— such matters as pertain to our specific work,
church notices, etc. It was decided that we
print another paper, and that items of this kind
be printed in it. ‘This matter was canvassed
very thoroughly, and while we disliked to start
publishing still another paper, yet it was the
consensus of opinion of those who were there
at the meeting, that this would be the best
thing to be done under the circumstances.
So the printing of a small paper has been
authorized by the committee. It will be pub-
lished at first once in two weeks by the South-
ern Union Conference, though it will doubt-
less be printed by the Southern Publishing
Association. It will be a comparatively small
paper, and the price will be twenty-five cents
a year. The presidents of some of our state
conferences seem to think that such a paper
is needed for their own state conference, and
now this paper will provide a channel of com-
munication from the leaders in the work to
the people at large, and it will not be necessary
for the state conferences to print papers of
this kind here in the South. It will serve for
the whole Southern field, and will relieve the
WarcHMAN from that class of literature which
really is objectionable in a paper, designed, as
the WATCHMAN 1s, as a missionary paper.
Doubtless the size and frequency of the paper
may be increased as the work advances.
It is expected that the paper will be pub-
lished very soon. While it will be of special
interest to those who are in the Union Con-
ference itself, it is believed that it will be of
interest to our brethren and sisters through-
out the North who may desire to know how
the work in the South is progressing. The
name of the paper will be The Report of
Progress. The nature of the journal will be
precisely that, and it is expected that it will
be of great interest to all lovers of the cause
in the Southland. We believe there are many
in the North who will want the paper. It
will be only twenty-five cents a year. It is
expected that the WarcaMaN will be much
improved as a missionary journal by this
means.
A New Sanitarium
In view of the many Testimonies that have
been received in recent years in regard to the
needs of others than the white races of a san-
jitarium and school near the city of Nashville,
Tenn., this matter was very carefully consid-
ered at the meeting of the committee. Recent
Testimonies have seemed to press upon the
Southern field the absolute necessity of doing
something along these lines, and that soon.
There are a great many difficulties in connec-
tion with such a work that have seemed to be
hindering the work in the past; but in view of
our faith as a people in the nearness of the
coming of Christ and statements made to the
effect that the work in the South will close up,
perhaps sooner than in other parts of the coun-
try, it was felt that there should be delay no
longer in our efforts to advance the work of
God in all directions where we can have in-
fluence.
To be sure, we have an immense burden of
difficulty with which to contend here in the
Southern field. But we must move onward.