The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Sheet 122

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

phasized the significance of the house of God that
had been erected out there in that old pine-field.

As we wound up our rheumatic Ford and pointed
its nose towards the city, some forty miles away,
we thanked God that He had erected a lighthouse
in that barren field and prayed that the light shining
in this house might lead other straying souls to the
haven of eternal rest. To-day the new chapel at
Ingomar, a backward community of Dallas County,
Alabama, stands as another triumph of faith over
the gates of hell.

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It is rather late to speak of our school-work
during the past year, but we wish to offer just
a word. On June 1 Alabama Luther College held
its first commencement exercises. Four young
ladies were graduated and are now ready to enter
the service of the Lord as Christian teachers in the
Black Belt of Alabama. Our first graduates are:
Miss Gertrude McBryde, Miss Carrie G. Stallworth,
Miss Lela M. Young, and Miss Grace H. Smith.
May the blessings of the Lord rest upon these young
ladies and their work!

The venerable Professor Berg, of Immanuel

_ Lutheran College, Greensboro, N.C., was our com-
mencement speaker. It is needless to say that he
offered the graduates sound advice when he held up
before them “The Good. Lutheran Teacher.” Pro-
fessor Berg spent several days with us and visited
some of our rural stations. While with us, he was
treated to a taste of Alabama mission-work by
being caught in a storm and getting back home
after one o’clock at night.

During the year forty-eight students were housed
in our dormitories, and they were all Lutherans.
Since the beginning of our school, four years ago,
the student-body has been one hundred per cent.
Lutheran. R. 0. L. L.

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Lights and Shadows.

When the Negro was a slave, he owned no
homes. To-day there are in our country not less
than 500,000 homes owned by colored people. Then
they owned no Jand; now they own as much land
as the total area of all Ireland. The 50,000 busi-
ness enterprises owned and controlled by Negroes
an our country do an annual business of one and
a half billion dollars. __ ee ees

The advance which the American Negro made
in the sixty years that have passed since his eman-
cipation is not equaled in the history of any nation —
or race that has ever lived on this earth.

119

The Negro’s advance in education has been as
rapid as has been his growth along material lines.
Sixty years ago only three per cent. of them could
read or write; to-day, seventy-five out of every
hundred. And the advance would be even more
rapid if the negro were always given a fair chance.
We all know that in the Southern States there are
separate schools for whites and blacks. Now, jus-
tice would demand that the school facilities for each
would be in proportion to the number of children.
But this is by no means the case. Listen to what
is done: Alabama spends $9 a year for the educa-
tion of each white child, but only $2 for the Negro
child. In Louisiana it is thought worth while to
spend every year for the education of the white
child the sum of $14, but it is thought sufficient to
spend $1.31 annually for the schooling of the black
boy or girl. It is claimed that because of this at-
titude in the South to the education of the Negro
and the consequent lack of funds to school him, no
less than one million black children have ‘no chance
to get an education, as far as the State is concerned.
From a purely educational standpoint, then, the
need of our mission-schools, especially in the two
States mentioned, is very, very great. Of course,
from a spiritual viewpoint the need is even greater.

It can therefore not be surprising that our
schools are always overcrowded and that dozens are
always on the waiting list. Those who are on the
waiting list keenly feel their position and greatly
deplore the lack of that education which they would
so gladly have, to procure which, however, they lack
the opportunity.

If our wealthy and well-to-do white Lutherans
knew only half of what we know, who have worked
among the Negroes, dollars would flow where pen-
nies are now given grudgingly.

How would it, for example, touch you if you
were the principal of a mission-school and you
would get a letter from a girl to whom you had
offered a chance to work her way through school by
doing housework before and after lessons — a letter
like this: “deer paster. i is shuly glad that you all
found a place for me to work i is sorry that i cant

“come now but dont giv my chanse to no one else
“i shuly will be there when school opens agen in

janery, if i is still livin and God spares me.”
Could you keep your heart from beating faster

_after reading such a letter? Could you do otherwise

than determine that you would do your utmost to
give such a Negro girl a chance? Dear reader,
there are hundreds, even thousands, of such Negro
boys and girls in the beautiful Southland anxious