The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1903 no. 139

              NUMBER  139                                     ATLANTA, GEORGIA                                 OCTOBER,   1903 For statement of the work of Atlanta University see last page. OUR   APPEAL   LAST   JUNE After three years of success in meeting all our current expenses and making a substantial reduction of our debt, we were compelled to close our books last summer with a deficit of over $8,000. This was not because of any falling off in our general donation income, which was a little larger than in any previous year in our history, but was due mainly to a large decrease in special gifts and legacies available for current expenses. An attempt was made in June, the last month of our financial year, to avert this deficit through a public appeal for funds printed in the newspapers and signed by fifty of the best known friends and supporters of Atlanta University. Owing probably to the lateness of the season, the response to this appeal was very small and the deficit was not averted. Two lessons are suggested by this experience: One is the importance of securing the bulk of our donation income in the earlier part of the school year, and this might be accomplished if more of our regular donors could find it possible to make their gifts in the fall and winter instead of waiting till the spring and early summer. The other lesson is that our ordinary donation income needs to be sufficiently enlarged to relieve us from any uncertain dependence on the use of legacies or other special income for current expenses, thus enabling us to devote these latter revenues, when they come, to the increase of the endowment or the improvement of the plant. We trust, too, that our friends will remember that the cost of maintaining our work is necessarily much greater than it was ten years ago. While the immediate occasion of the appeal referred to has passed by, the general need which it represented still exists; and its statements are so forcible and the names of its signers so significant that it seems worth while to reprint it in the Bulletin, many of whose readers may not have seen it at the time of publication. "An Appeal" "Atlanta University is in urgent need of money to cover the expenses of the current year now closing. Its work is vital and far-reaching. While providing manual instruction, and second to no other institution in teaching self-help to its pupils, the University has a special and all-important function —the preparation of competent teachers for the industrial,  normal  and   public   schools. "Valuable as is industrial training, there must be an increasing number of men and women with intellectual, as well as practical, equipment to serve as educators to the ignorant and unfortunate of their race. The colored people of the South, in spite of the number of schools sustained by Northern aid, are hardly yet touched by the present educational appliances. Large masses are still waiting for the advent of the schoolhouse and the teacher, both in pitiful supply compared with the pressing demand. "However skillful a colored man may be as a carpenter or a mason, the mere knowledge of a mechanical trade does not fit him for the profession of school teaching. Other qualities are essential, and these Atlanta University endeavors to supply. White teachers in the South are mainly confined to the instruction of white children; and, if the emancipated race is to be adequately reached, colored instructors must be specially educated for the purpose. It is a great, a beneficent work, and in it the success of Dr. Bumstead and his teachers is unquestioned. "Only a few of the Southern institutions are preparing Negro teachers of the highest grade who are capable of training other teachers and so multiplying the supply, and in this work Atlanta University has been conspicuously successful. That such an institution has to limit its number of students for lack of means is to be deeply regretted. It needs immediately at least ten thousand dollars, and appeals to the sympathy and benevolence of the North. The money given will not only help the student of today, but through him its benefits will be passed on to children in benighted regions, where schools are scarce or non-existent. In behalf of this saving work, important not less to the white people of the country than to the Negroes, we earnestly ask for liberal contributions. "Contributions may be sent to Major Henry L. Higginson, 44 State Street, Boston, and will be promptly acknowledged."* [Signed:] Charles W. Elliot         Henry S. Pritchett Henry L. Higginson     E. Winchester Donald George A. Gordon         Leighton Parks Ednah D. Cheney         Edwin D. Mead Julia Ward Howe         Lucia Ames Mead *Gifts should now be sent to the Treasurer of Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga. Francis H. Peabody     Arthur F. Estabrook Wm. Lloyd Garrison    Butler P. Wilson Francis J. Garrison       Herbert A. Wilder 'Charles Gordon Ames Prank A. Day George G. Bradford       Archibald H. Grimke Richard P. Hallowell   Arthur C. Walworth Norwood P. Hallowell Charles L. Mitchell Edward H. Clement     Frederick H. Means Joseph Lee                    Josephine St. P. Ruffin Francis H. Brown        Daniel Merriman Nathan E. Wood          William H. Davis Mrs. Henry Whitman Edward C. Moore William J. Tucker        Samuel M. Crothers George Harris               William H. Lewis William DeWitt Hyde Albert E. Dunning John Graham Brooks    Arthur T. Lyman Edward Cummings       William James Estelle M. H. Merrill   Maria L. Baldwin Ellen F. Mason             Ida M. Mason Thomas Wentworth Higginson George H. Palmer Boston, June 20, 1903. THE TOWNE LEGACY Under the will of Joseph H. Towne, late of Salem, Mass., we have received a legacy of $2,375 for use in connection with our industrial work. This legacy is most timely, and is especially welcome to meet certain pressing needs in our printing office. Our present outfit is not equal to our increased needs, now that we print The Bulletin, The Scroll, the annual conference report and catalogue, and do a considerable amount of miscellaneous school printing. Last year we were obliged, reluctantly, to have quite an amount of press work done in the city. It is proposed to purchase a new press, our present press being somewhat out of repair. The office will be moved from the third floor of Stone Hall, where, we fear, so much press work is injuring the building, to the basement of South Hall, where the press can have a solid foundation, and to make some other improvements, which will be  duly   noticed  in  these  pages. Perhaps a little over one-third of the legacy will be needed in connection with the printing office. In the Knowles Industrial Building some needed changes will also be made, and our sewing and cooking departments will not be neglected. '99—Miss Julia O. Wright has recently accepted an appointment in the state school at Pine Bluff, Ark. '00—Miss India V. Wilkes, who. has taught several years in Milledgeville, is now employed in the public schools of Atlanta.