this church and school work are inseparably blended. The people among
whom it labors are children in knowledge, and will remain so for a long
time, for there are millions of blacks, mountain whites, Indians, and
Chinese in our country who cannot read and write. In Northern
communities where the children grow up in Christian homes and are
environed in cultured society, with the best of common schools, the
church finds the material for its membership, so far forth, prepared to
its hand, but among these millions of unlettered peoples the church, if
it is to be pure and intelligent, must be the outgrowth of the Christian
school; and the branches of the tree might as well be expected to grow
up without the roots, as such churches without these schools. The work
among them begins in the primary school, and follows them through all
departments of industrial, normal, collegiate and theological
instruction.

In all this long process the teachers are with them at every step--in
the shop, the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer meeting, and the
church, and often the principal of the school is the pastor of the
church. Thus the church, which grows up within or along side of the
school, gets the priceless boon of the personal example and influence of
these Christian teachers, in refining the manners and in making
character; and as the pupils are converted they enter the church to
become its stable members and intelligent officers. On the other hand,
the families in the church, with their kindred and friends, furnish the
pupils for the school and help to sustain it by their money and prayers,
both the church and the school being stronger by their mutual support
and more potent in their influence in the community than if they stood
apart. And even after the scholars have left the school and have entered
upon the business of life, the Association is especially fitted to
gather them into churches. It has occurred in several instances, in