BY REV. LEWELLYN PRATT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.

The report of the Educational Work of this Association shows steady
advance, in spite of straitened means. New responsibilities have been
assumed in consequence of gifts of school buildings, and of the
appeals from the people themselves, taxing--beyond the receipts from
the churches--the resources of the Association.

An important feature of the Educational Work is represented in the
twenty Normal Schools, from which have gone out seven thousand young
men and women now engaged in teaching at the South. It is probable
that nearly half a million of scholars have been under their care.
These, together with the Normal Departments in our chartered
institutions, Talladega College, Atlanta University, Straight
University, Tillotson Institute, Tougaloo University and Fisk
University, (with Hampton Institute, Berea College and Howard
University, formerly under the care of the Association) are doing a
great work in training teachers, as well as leaders in industrial
pursuits and in the professions of the law and the ministry.

In all these, the fact, now so generally received in mission work, is
fully recognized, that the leaders and teachers of a people must be
found among themselves. They have abundantly proved their eagerness
for education, their capacity for scholarship and leadership, and
their ability to meet the problems resting upon the future of their
race and of the nation. This is true, also, of the schools among the
Indians and the Chinese.

Still, the work done by the Society and by all other agencies--State
and denominational--has not kept pace with the growth of population,