massive proportions. All over the South our schools had been planted. These schools were branches of the same tree; they had a common trunk and drew their life and spirit from the same soil. But, separated so far from one another, as many of them were, there came to be a felt necessity that some one competent to care for their common interests, while recognizing at the same time their separate prerogatives and rights, must be found. Multiplied variety necessarily had characterized their development, and as a consequence, the unity of their origin and aim had been endangered. That is a law of nature. We had been brought to see and feel this. We looked around to find the man equal to the task involved. It was not easy to find him. We realized the difficulty. Our workers realized it. It would not have been strange if we had made a mistake. A rare combination of qualifications was demanded. We believed that Professor Salisbury possessed these qualifications. We invited him to take up the work. He accepted. He entered, and continued in it down to the last moment he held the office, with all his heart and soul, and now that he has felt constrained to leave us we are glad, not only on his account, but also on our own, unreservedly to bear testimony that, we believe, no mistake was made when he was appointed.

He has rendered the American Missionary Association signal service, and when we remember how intimately the work of this Association is connected with the welfare of the nation, it is not too much to say that he has in these three years of hard and faithful work rendered signal service to the whole land. Our school work has steadily grown in efficiency and power ever since he took it up, and the general cause of education all over the South has been benefited by the impulse his teaching, character and devotion have inspired. Not alone the colored schools, but the white schools as well, have been the gainers. By his lectures and instruction given in Normal Institutes, and by his personal contact with the leading educators of the South, he has brought in no small degree a knowledge of the most approved methods of teaching to the attention of Southern educators, and has done much to develop a sentiment in favor of popular education among the people.

It is a high compliment to his ability the State of Wisconsin pays in calling him back and investing him with the principalship of the same school from which we took him; and, as we reluctantly return him, we can wish for him no greater blessing than that the same success may attend his labors in the field to which he goes that, with God's favor, has so abundantly crowned him in the one he leaves.

"The king is dead; long live the king." We have just been speeding the parting guest. We now turn to welcome the coming. That we have done the "speeding" reluctantly does not abate the heartiness with which we now do the "welcoming." To such an extent had our church work been systematized under Superintendent Roy, and our school work under Superintendent Salisbury, that when we had to transfer the one to the Western District Secretaryship, and had to lose the other, we felt that the two positions might possibly be merged. The very success of these workers had made this practicable. Not that the work of the two could be done by any one man. They are not that kind of men, as our constituents well know. They are both of them drivers. It is almost enough to discourage any ordinary man to see either of them work. A hard position to fill surely. We are glad to say that after a good deal of searching we believe we have found the man.

We have appointed Rev. C. J. Ryder, of Medina, Ohio, as our Field Superintendent. He accepts the appointment and will take up the work the first of September. He will be located at Cincinnati, from which point, by reason of its central location and excellent railroad facilities, he will be able to reach out in all directions. A successful pastor—an able preacher, having had experience and success as a teacher, and in addition possessing already considerable knowledge of our work, he will enter the field with the opinions of all those who know him best united that he will make it a success. We welcome him to the ranks of our fellowship in the glorious cause of bringing the light of the gospel and Christian education to the poor; we welcome him to the rich joy the expressions of their heart-felt gratitude will cause him to experience. We welcome him to the love and confidence and co-operation of our missionaries whose hearts will be made glad by his visits and whose toil will be made lighter by his counsel; above all we welcome him to the rewards God bestows upon those who are ready, if need be, to surrender everything that they may follow Christ.

HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO.

Many strangely adopt this wrong principle with regard to the negro race—that they are to be treated not simply as men, but as colored men, as members of a peculiar and inferior race, about whom one must not reason as he would about others, and especially about white men. One writer thinks that his eyes have just been opened to the truth, for he says: "Like most Northern men, I have made the mistake of judging the black by the standard of the white. A freer intercourse with him and a closer study of his characteristics have shown me that he is not to be so judged, and that the training adapted to the white man is not adapted to the black." In any reasonable sense of these words, we regard them as involving the same error which so long hindered emancipation—the idea that negroes could not be expected to act as would other men in the same circumstances. It used to be argued that freed negroes would refuse to labor, and would simply plunder and massacre. The history of the last twenty years, and the enormous crops raised at the South since the war, have disproved this absurdity, although the writer quoted still has his doubts, for he says of the negro: "We must take him as he is; and because we have not done this, his freedom, which has been of inestimable value to the Southern white man, has until now been a most questionable blessing to the negro!" One who can utter that doubt has some defect of vision, which disqualifies him from reaching safe conclusions respecting the colored race. Now, every race has certain peculiarities, and so has every nation, and to these we have a degree of regard in our intercourse with them. In minor matters, we remember, in our dealings, that this man is a Scotchman, and that man a Welshman, and that a Frenchman, and that a German. But in great questions of principle and method touching humanity, such as education and religion, we drop race and nation, and act upon simple manhood. If we do not, we are sure to err. The true idea in the case before us is, not to think perpetually of the black skin and the African blood, but of the man, and to use with the negro precisely the measures which should be used with white men in the same circumstances of ignorance and poverty, and with the same responsibilities as citizens. And it is singular that objectors to our work do not seem to be aware that the precise difficulty which they emphasize respecting the black masses at the South has been equally emphasized by others respecting the white masses at the North. The complaint everywhere heard in the Northern States is, that the common people are being so highly educated as to become dissatisfied with labor. The young men and young women refuse to work at manual industries, and take to trade and the professions, or else become dissipated idlers. Hence attempts are making to attach industrial education to our common schools. Why, then, talk of the peculiarities of the negro in this matter? There are none. He simply shares in the temptations