The twentieth annual session of the Afro-American Council of Presbyterian ministers, elders and laymen was held at Baltimore in October. At the twenty-ninth annual session of Church Workers among Colored People which met at Lawrenceville, Virginia, in September, a memorial was adopted asking that colored bishops be selected by the Episcopal Church for missionary work in districts where large numbers of colored people are to be served. Dr. H. B. Delaney, of Raleigh, North Carolina, president of the conference, and Dr. George F. Bragg, of Baltimore, secretary of the conference and author of the memorial, were chosen as delegates to lay the wishes of the organization before the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in New York the following month. The 1914 session of the Conference of Church Workers among Colored People will be held at New York City in September. The Question of Negro Bishops Stirs the Episcopal Convention in New York The question of Negro bishops for Negro dioceses was taken up at the General Episcopal Convention in New York City, October 21. The committee to which the matter was referred made a majority and minority report. The majority report presented by Dr. C. B. Brown, of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, opposed the election of Negro bishops and the separation of Negro communicants into independent dioceses. The minority report favoring the division was presented by Dr. I. M. Pittinger, of North Carolina. After much discussion, the House of Bishops, one of the two governing bodies of the Protestant Episcopal Church, voted to establish a separate bishopric for the Negroes of the South, the bishop of this district to have a seat in the Upper House. The House of Deputies, the other governing body of the church, rejected this plan and asked the bishops to refer the matter to the Joint Commission which would report at the next triennial convention. The bishops. refused to concur in this action, a deadlock ensued and the final result was that the committee was discharged without any action. The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, which is a union of the Protestant churches of this country, at its meeting in Chicago, adopted the following resolution with reference to the work that Negro ministers are doing for Negroes: Whereas, the religious and spiritual development of the Negroes has been almost entirely committed to the members of that race by all denominations; and Whereas, the ever-growing Negro population is ever shifting from one section of our country to another, thus creating the necessity to follow them with the Gospel, and Whereas, this work is being done so well and is vital to the nation and our common Christiandom, therefore Resolved, That the Federal Council hereby extends its congratulations to these workers, and commends them to the sympathetic interest of all the people. The Salvation Army Extends its The Salvation Army, in its efforts to extend its work among Negroes, is training a number of Negroes and assigning them to the Southern field. This is the first attempt of the Salvation Army to reach Negroes through members of their own race. It is proposed to have a colored department, although under the general supervision of the commander of the Salvation Army. At present the Negro workers are being trained at the headquarters in New York; but it is proposed to establish a training school at some central point in the South where they will be prepared for the Salvation Army field. The Executive Committee of the Council of the Reformed Churches in America, which includes all branches of Presbyterian faith, recommended co-operation in the work that these several branches are carrying on among Negroes. The recommendation was addressed to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Churches, which met in Atlanta in May, to the General Assembly of the Reformed Church of America, which met at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, in June, and to the General Assembly of the Reformed Church in the United States, which met at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in May. The main features of the recommendations are: 2 That in communities where there is a considerable Negro population and where two or more churches of the council are represented, and particularly where there exists or may be organized a Negro Presbyterian church, the session or consistory of said churches should be urged to undertake some form of co-operative mission work in behalf of the colored people of their respective locality. To insure a supply of well-trained lay workers for the lines of service here proposed, in addition to the greater work heretofore commenced for the large colored population in the cities of the South, we recommend that the management of Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn., be requested to consider the propriety of establishing and maintaining a department for such training. Respectfully submitted by the executive committee: J. G. Sned ecor, chairman, Tuscaloosa, Ala., W. J. Darby, secretary, Evansville, Ind.; Charles E. Schaeffer, Philadelphia; E. P. Cowan, Pittsburg; and R. W. McGranahan, Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tennessee. At the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at St. Louis, in May, it was decided to build and equip a theological seminary for the education of Negro Baptist preachers. This school is to be located in Louisville, the seat of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the president of this institution is to have charge of the school for Negro ministers. The committee appointed in charge of this matter is: "E. Y. Mullins, Louisville, Ky., chairman; A. L. Hailey, Corsicana, Texas; A. J. Barton, Waco, Texas; Benjamin Cox, Memphis, Tenn.; E. M. Atkins, Little Rock, Ark.; J. M. Frost, Nashville, Tenn.; B. F. Riley, Birmingham, Ala.; G. W. McDaniel, Richmond, Va., and J. J. Bennett, Atlanta, Ga." Recent Movements in Negro Education Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, of the United States Bureau of Education, in an article on Recent Movements in Negro Education, gave as the more important and significant movements for the improvement of education of Negroes in the South, "the activities of the Jeanes Fund, the Farmers' Co-operative Demonstration Work, the appointment of State supervisors of Negro rural schools, the increase of efficient supervision by several of the religious boards that maintain schools for colored pupils, the organization of a comprehensive study of the private and higher schools for the education of colored people by the United States Bureau of education and the PhelpsStokes Fund; and numerous educational conferences disseminating information and inspiration among the workers in colored schools. Interpreting education broadly, there must be added to the above list the noteworthy building campaigns of the Young Men's Christian Association among colored people, and the successful meetings of the national and state associations of colored teachers." The American Missionary Association, through its executive committee, and in accordance with the resolution adopted at the annual meeting at Buffalo in 1912, early in 1913 issued its appeal for a $1,000,000 offering as an emancipation jubilee endowment fund for the higher educational institutions connected with the association. The six institutions chosen and the prorating of the proposed 1 endowment fund were: Fisk University, $250,000; Talladega College, $150,000; Tougaloo University, $150,000; Straight University, $150,000; Tillotson College, $150,000; Piedmont College $150,00. Of the $1,000,000, $218,645 was secured during the year. The most of this sum was turned over to Fisk University in order to save to this institution a large conditional gift from the General Educational Board. The faculty, alumni and students of the several schools and colored Congregational churches are reported as having made generous contributions. Fisk University pledged $45,000. Onefourth of this amount was paid in by October. Co-operation of Black and White in Nineteen hundred thirteen was designated as a Jubilee year for the schools of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A campaign to raise a half million dollars that year was launched. It was proposed to raise $100,000 of this in the colored conferences and $400,000 in the white conferences. During the year these colored conferencs paid in $40,000 of the amount they are to raise. From July 1, 1912, to July 1, 1913, the 300,000 members in the colored conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church contributed $48,000, which was $15,000 over anything the colored people in this church had ever given in a like period of time. When the report of the work of the colored conferences was read at the annual meeting of the General Committee of the Freedmen's Aid Society in Springfield, Illinois, it so pleased the committee that the members at once raised $31,000 among themselves. In connection with the Sixteenth Conference for Education in the South, held at Richmond, Virginia, April 15-18, there were two special conferences on the Negro. These conferences were presided over by Dr. James H. Dillard, director of the work of the Jeanes and Slater Fund Boards and were "attended by white school officials including superintendents of public instruction, state supervisors of industrial and elementary schools, school principals, members of educational boards, workers in the United States Bureau of Education, as well as by colored school officers." Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, pointed out that the improvement of Negro rural schools is a part of the problem of improving country life. He declared that the only solution for the country school problem, white or colored, is the teacher. He would have school consolidation, including the build ing at the consolidated school of a home for the teacher and the laying out of a garden plat that would become a demonstration center for the school community. Dr. Dillard pointed out the handicaps under which the Negro schools for higher education worked, namely: slender means, lack of teachers, poor equipment. It was reported that one of the most striking addresses was that of Miss Virginia E. Randolph, the colored supervisor of rural schools for Henrico and Alexandria Counties, Virginia. She told of the work that she is doing in these two counties "to help the local teachers organize patrons' Leagues, School Improvement Clubs among the boys and girls, and to make the school a social center seven days in the week." The conferences were reported to have been "characterized by a frank discussion of the best methods of helping the Negro boys and girls to better living, better farming, and better home-making through the medium of the common school. Northerners, Southerners, white men and black men, came together on the platform of better schools for a better South." Southern Educational Association Discusses Negro Education One of the subjects discussed at the annual convention of the Southern Educational Association held at Nashville in November was the problem of educating the Negro. Professor J. R. Guy, vocational director of the public schools of Charleston, South Carolina, stated that, in his opinion, white teachers from the South should be procured to instruct the Negroes of this section. The Negroes, he said, are in urgent need of industrial education. Trained white teachers who know conditions in the South and understand the Negroes' needs should be the ones to give them this instruction. Dr. James H. Dillard, speaking on the same occasion, said: "We are not doing what we should do and what we can do for Negro rural schools. We should give them better schoolhouses and better trained teachers. Too many Negroes are leaving the country and moving to town because of the lack of good schools. We need the Negro on the farm and we should make it attractive and to his interest to remain there." The General Education Board has provided for State supervisors of Negro rural schools in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, |