they toiled, and may their reward be large in the world to come, as their labor is great in the present. For their labor is great. paid by them in these hard times, amounts to $320.80. Another feature of the report is quite as flattering to them. The number of pupils over "Hoping my long letter will not be sixteen years of age is but 187; yet too tedious, I tender the Indiana we find 201 classed in geography, and Yearly Meeting of Friends my thanks, 492 in arithmetic; in the higher and the thanks of the colored people branches there are 73. This is as here, for the kind assistance rendered." EDUCATION OF THE FREEDMEN. promising as the best friend of the colored man could desire. Mr. Colby informs us that the planters generally take a great interest in his mission, and are desirous of conONE of the repelling forces in the tributing to its success. The only State to the tide of immigration is the needs of the Bureau at present lie in barbarism of ignorance in which its the lack of teachers. Were this want freedmen are presumed to be living. supplied, hundreds of new schools Mental darkness means moral dark- could be immediately formed in the ness. Ignorance alone may not be State with the prospect of an early the progenitor of all the crimes in independence. There is a pressing the decalogue, but a mental obliquity demand," says Mr. Colby, "for comof vision has been the characteristic petent teachers to take charge of cause of most of them. Insurance schools on plantations." Are there agents tell us that their rates are low- not more friends of the freedmen est where school houses most abound. in Indiana, or elsewhere, who will The world regards the school master make efforts to meet this pressing deas a more potent conservator of the mand?-Arkansas Republican. peace than city marshals or high sheriffs. A liberal common school From the Indiana School Journal. POPULATION. system is the best police system a THE EDUCATION OF OUR COLORED State can devise. Nothing would impart such a sense of security to immigration as to know that it was coming to a State whose wise legislation had provided for the education of the young of all classes; and such legislation must begin as soon as Arkansas is mistress of her affairs. In the meantime we are grateful to the Federal Government and to private aid associations, for what is being done towards the education of the freedmen. William M. Colby, Esq., General Superintendent of Freedmen's Schools for Arkansas, has permitted us to see his last monthly report to the Bureau. Whilst many important and radical steps are being taken for the advancement of universal education, this is one to which I fear we are not sufficiently aroused. In the final solution of the great national problem that has been before us for several years past, I believe that the providence of God designs to secure to every person in our land equal and just rights. His judgments are in the earth and prosperity will not return to us in the full, until we, as a people, have so far acknowledged His right arm to be di-' recting the progress of human affairs as to cheerfully acquiesce in the decree, and to grant to all persons all the rights and privileges which we enjoy and to protect them in their enjoyment of them. This report shows a good beginning in a good work. It shows, too, that no means are lacking, save in teachers, to prosecute it to success. The freedmen are willing to help towards defraying the expenses of their education. Of the school buildings, ten It is not within the province of this are owned by freedmen. Of the article to discuss the above proposischools, seven are wholly sustained tion, hence I shall pass immediately by freedmen; and the monthly tuition to the one indicated by my subject. This problem is before us, and we must solve it. Through personal or party influences, through fear of encountering prejudice and opposition, and for other reasons which actuate timid men to stand still, we may for a time partially evade the issue, but we can not turn it off. Let us then meet it manfully and with the fear of God before us. and instruction of colored teachers, male and female, there is in Philadelphia a school for the education of girls and boys in the Latin and Greek Classics, the Mathematics, History, Geography and Composition, which is fully equal to the best of the endowed academies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This is saying a great deal, but we still stand by it. "II. We saw that under the development of this culture, favored by We have a large colored population long deprived of any educational privileges. They already consti- the strong social position which the tute an important element in our national structure and they must ever continue to. All schemes of colonization must fail. Indeed I am not sure but that right demands that they should fail. How then shall we most easily make these people an element of prosperity to us and to themselves? colored population in Philadelphia have attained in that freest of our great cities, there were one hundred and eighty-one boys and girls of African descent, as intelligent, as selfrespectful, as well-mannered, as well dressed and as promising as the same number of school children in any of the best schools in New England.We must educate them. Every To be more specific-we saw a large moment of delay is wasted time.- school of colored pupils, who, in no The old "bug-bear" of "Negro Equali- respect, save color and features, difty" will not suffice longer to stifle fered at all from the best educated the consciences of intelligent people, and most carefully trained white to intimidate men from performing their Christian duties to the oppressed. Equality in a social point of view is not even a probable result, and if it were it has nothing to do with the question any more than the education of any other class of ignorant and depraved people has. They must be placed in possession of every educational advantage that white persons have. I mean to say to all white men in the land, that justice, self-interest and national prosperity alike demand that the child of the oppressed negro, shall have educational privileges equal in quality and kind with those which your children enjoy. If their ability to improve these opportunities ever was a question, it has ceased to be such now. But in this connection I make the following extract from the N. Y. Tribune, concerning the "Shippen Street Colored High School" of Philadelphia. boys and girls of the same age in the best academies of the Northern States. In all respects, they were fully their equals. "III. We saw colored children of both sexes, between the ages of twelve and nineteen, rigidly examined in Xenophon's Anabasis and the Greek Testament, in Virgil's Æneid, Cicero's orations and Horace's songs, in plane and spherical trigonometry, Legendre's geometry, algebra, mental arithmetic, English analysis, history and geography, and saw that they understood and knew what they recited; and they were radically and thoroughly instructed; that their answers to questions were not exercises of memory; that they had not been drilled parrot-like for a public show; and that they had successfully received from colored instructors the education which our best schools give white children preparatory to enter ing college. "We visited this school last week, "IV. We heard compositions read, and for two days witnessed its annu- and declamations delivered, upon al commencement exercises. We such themes as "The Essential Feasaw there abundant evidenceture of a Republic,' 'Music as an Ele "I. That under the management ment of Worship," "The Education of Women,' The Age of Pericles,' 'The tle or no prejudice existing in regard American Congress.' The Province to the matter. The Colleges of Ohio, of Poetry,' 'Individual Effort,' 'The excepting Oberlin' are, so far as I New Rome,' The Two Cæsars.'- know, closed to colored persons. These performances-original, mark- Within the past two years the pubed with thought, of a high grade of lic schools of Illinois have been openexcellence in the use of language and ed to colored children. About two structure of sentences and full of years ago I visited some of the finest generous feeling and morality--had schools of Chicago, and found many they been listened to by the most colored children attending. I was prejudiced upholders of caste, would informed by Prof. S. H. White, the surely have shamed them out of all accomplished Principal of one of further talk about the inferiority of those large schools, that at first a litthe African race, and brought them tle opposition was manifested, but it to a candid confession that there is soon vanished. nothing in the organization of the colored American which should withhold from him complete political enfranchisement; nothing in his character or capacities which can longer uphold the mean and cowardly lie that the Government of the United States was intended to be a 'White Man's Government.' 999 St. Louis has a system of free colored schools but I am not well informed as to their exact nature. These are facts with which I believe the people are not generally acquainted. I at one time, found colored children attending by common consent the free schools of Michigan City in our own State I am not informRichard Humphreys, a member- ed as to whether they yet continue the Society of Friends,in Philadelphia to do so. Liber College in Jay counpreparing for his deathin the year 1832 devised $10,000 in trust "to instruct descendants of the African race in school learning,in the various branches of the mechanic arts and trade, and in agriculture, in order to prepare and qualify them to act as teachers in those branches of useful business." That little sum of money was the seed from which has grown up the Shippen Street Colored High school. With the problem before us it may be well to inquire what other states are doing. ty is open to them, also some of the private schools of the Society of Friends. But we may say that the blacks are virtually excluded from all our schools. I believe that our late legislature has taken some action in regard to the education of the blacks. This is right, but to be effectual it must be radical. Shall our neighbor sister states, Ohio and Illinois whose schools both in spirit and in fact are very far in advance of ours, do justice to all whilst we, the people of Indiana allow our prejudice and our ignorance to blind us? Shall they grow strong under the nourishing influence of a liberal school policy, whilst we wrap ourselves in our cloak of self-sufficiency and remain stationary? For a number of years past the laws of Ohio have made provision for the education of the blacks in separate schools, established and supported as other free schools are, but in some places popular sentiment has opened the way and both attend the same Let us take hold of this work enerschool. Such has been the case in getically. As to the special means for Cleveland, whose public institutions accomplishing it, I am not particular, of learning would put to blush those of any city in our State. Not long since I visited those schools and found colored youth in all departments, and not unfrequently standing beside the white children in the highest classes. So far as I could learn there was lit but let it be done thoroughly and speedily. Whether we establish separate schools for the blacks or open the doors of our school-houses to all alike, I am indifferent. But I think that in communities sufficiently dense ly populated tosustain schools forboth The Central Book and Tract Committee of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends have stereotype plates for more than 150 different Tracts, 16 are on our Doctrines, Principles and Distinguishing Views and Practices, and 16 are the Tracts prepared by John Ashworth, viz: Richard, Niff, Joseph, Dark Hour, Mary, Wonder, Sanderson, Wilkins, My Mother, Old Adam, Ellen Williams, Priscilla, The Widow, Twenty Pounds, Mothers, Answered at last. Any of the publications of the Committee will be furnished at the cost of printing and paper, (about 10 pages for one cent.) Orders may be addressed to Joseph Dickinson, agent at Richmond, Ind. The limited means at the disposal of the Committee renders them unable to supply gratuitous calls except to a moderate extent to members of Indiana Yearly Meeting. CHARLES F. COFFIN, Clerk. N. B. If parcels of Tracts are desired to be sent by mail, the amount for postage should be forwarded with the order. NORTHERN INDIANA STATE PRISON AT MICHIGAN CITY, IND. THE writer visited this Prison a few weeks since. Its location, on Lake Michigan, appears to be a healthy, and, in many respects, a good one, and yet the bleak, barren sand-hills give it a desolate appearance, and add to the gloom always connected with such institutions. A space of about eight acres is enclosed with a brick wall, intended to be twenty-five feet high, and capped with stone, but not yet fully completed. Watch towers, extending about eighteen feet above the wall, are placed at each corner, and an armed guard kept constantly on duty there. At the entrance gate the buildings for officers are located, and immediately within is a large building containing the cells. This building is of brick, (as are all the others on the premises,) and appears to be well constructed, and arranged for light and ventilation. The cells are of stone--very secure, but cold and cheerless. Many of them have now two inmates crowded in them— a bad arrangement either for the comfort and health or moral and religious improvement of the inmates— but they are completing others and hope soon to have enough to separate the prisoners. The prisoners work in shops together about eleven hours each day, and have one hour for dinner. The remainder of the twentyfour hours and all the Sabbath except at breakfast and dinner, they are locked in the cells. There is light enough of an ordinary day to allow them to read, and at night many of the convicts, by overwork or through the kindness of their friends, procure candles. There is a library of about 500 volumes belonging to the Prison, which contains some good books, but needs replenishing. Very few of the cells have Bibles in them, but the Chaplain informed us that he supplied such convicts as desired them. All the cells should be supplied-during their long and weary hours of imprisonment many would read a Bible who, perhaps, would be ashamed to ask for one. There are several large brick buildings for shops, dining halls, &c. The prisoners did not appear to be overworked, indeed there seemed to us to be a general laxity and want of order and force-but the new Warden, (a very worthy gentleman,) had but just assumed his place, and will, we hope, introduce many needed improvements. A new building is being erected for a Chapel, and which is much J. D. For the American Friend, "REJOICE EVERMORE."--1 Thess., 5; 16. "We are perplexed, but not in despair."-11 Cor. 4; 8. There's joy in the sunlight gleam needed,―at present the only opportu- ings devote more consideration to the nity for public worship is in the din- promotion of "piety," seeking and ing hall after dinner, and very little occupying opportunity for the spread opportunity is afforded for Sabbath of the Gospel. This is certainly the School and religious instruction. The work intended for the church, and if State employs a "Moral Instructor," Friends were more actively engaged -a worthy Baptist minister, who in this, they would have fewer to preaches once on the Sabbath, (imme- disown, and do much more good. diately after dinner and before the The account from Adrian Monthly convicts leave their seats,) and visits Meeting in the last number of the and labors amongst the convicts at AMERICAN FRIEND, seems to give such other times as he thinks best, and cheering evidence in this respect. has the general charge of their religious and moral improvement. Whilst we believe the Chaplain labors industriously, it is quite apparent that sufficient provision is not made by the system at present pursued for the reformation and improvement of the convicts. It is more a place for punishment than reform. The men with whom we conversed seemed so to feel it, and were cold, hard and morosemore of Christian instruction, and kindness, mingled with firmness, would be very desirable. The system of contracting the labor leaves but little time or opportunity for this. We felt that a revision of the whole system of prison discipline and labor is much needed. Sixteen of the convicts are under 18 years of age. The whole number at present is 233; of them about 40 are in the wagon shop; 65 in cooper shop; 70 in brush factory; 20 engaged in building and the remainder as cooks, tailors, and in general service. C. F. COFFIN. FIFTH MO. 15, 1867. TRACT READING.-We are informed that Raysville Monthly Meeting, (Henry county, Indiana,) in the 4th month, appointed a large committee "To hold meetings for Tract readings and for worship during the summer in the various District School Houses and Meeting Houses in the vicinity where openings may be found." On first page of the introduction to our discipline, it is stated that George Fox designed our meetings for discipline to be for the promotion of Piety and Charity. We think the appointment at Raysville Monthly Meeting a return to first principles, and should be glad to see such meet That darts across the plain, The happy morn, the glorious morn, The "turtle's voice " again we hear, The lonesome days!-how glad we are Though changes fill the earth with tears, A holy rest, a joyful rest, Ten thousand times ten thousand sing The Lamb of God for sinners slain, |