The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1878-05-29
EDUCATION.

the General Assembly as the Seventeenth
Annual Report of the Executive Committee
of Education in regard to the work entrusted
to it during the past ecclesiastical year
The whole number of candidates whose
names have been enrolled as applicants Tor
assistance, from the beginning Of the year,
on regular recommendation by the various
Presbyteries, comprises seventy-nine IN all
stages of preparation. FOrty-one Of this
number we're represented as designing to pur-
sue strictly Theological studies, and to at
tend upon the instructions of the following
Seminaries, viz:
AT Union theological Seminary, II
At Columbia Seminary Il
AT Princeton, IN. j. Seminary, 3-4l,
The Committee, since the last Annual Re
port, has been enabled to make some progress
toward the extiuguishment of the indebted
ness to students for the year 18E5-'76, or,
as it should with more 9r0priety ,he called,
the de6csS hioh occurred uDd@ ISSd
ministration of the Committee of which this
Committee is the successor. TIE amount
reported as due in May last was S1,7S9-
Since that time, by collections RENTED to
our Treasury, this sum has been reduced to
the amount of S803 so, all of which is due
to twenty.seven students. Of these six are
graduates and twenty,one still in Semina'
ries and Colleges. There remains of the
legacy still due to the cause of Education
more than $1,000, which is regarded by
Judge Watson as entirely secure, and the
greater part of it may be realized in the
course of the ensuing ecclesiastical year.
1t is surely source of qualification to the
Committee, and calls for gratitude TO God,
that during all these years of annually in
oressing private financial pressure, and pain
full stringeney in the money markets of the
entire country, there has been steady en-
largement of territory over which the Com
mittee's operations have extended, and
regular annual increase of the number of
contributing churches throughout our entire
limits. The number of our churches which
during the year 1874-'75 co-operated with
your Committee was 6l2; and we now re-
port that during the year just closed we have
been receiving contributions from Z 90 church
es. So that the Committee recognizes CRATE
fully the fact that the number of contributing
churches to the cause of Beneficiary Eduea
ton since the year 1874, at which time this
Committee assumed the superintendence OF
the work, shows clear increase of one nun
dred and forty-four The Committee makes
this statement in full view of the fact, which,
of course, is not so gratifying, viz /; that the
amounts received from individual churches
have been in the majority of instances dl-
minished, making the receipts from all the
churches smaller in the aggregate. Yet the
Committee have no hesitation in expressing
the opinion that this decrease in the sums
contributed is to be accounted for readily
upon the consideration that the resources Of
the entire country have been reduced to
condition of unexsmpled embarrassment and
distress, and it is but natural to suppose that
churches have suffered in their proportion
lust as all institutions and individuals have
suffered. In the mean time it is a matter.o
no small comfort to the Committee that since
the last Annual Report was submitted to the
Assembly four of our Presbyteries formerly
on-eO-operative with the Assembly's scheme,
have signi6ed their adhesion, and are now re-
garded as formally in sympathy with this
Committee. This enables US to report to
the Assembly, that of the entire number of
sixty-6ve Presbyteries under the care of the
Assembly, 81 are in full cooperation with
the Committee; FIVE of which do not ask any
assistance from the Committee, but which
send to our treasury the surplus Of their
contributions, and three which have neither
asked aid of the Committee nor RENTED
funds to the treasury. Nor would the Com
mittee omit to mention as a matter of en-
couragement at least, the many kind and
cheering expressions of interest in reference
to this great fundamental cause given them
by honored and influential brethren in Vsrl-
Gus parts Of the Church, who also tender
their prayers for the success of the Commit
tee in its work, and lastly the Committee
would be very far from undertaking. the oft
occurring utteranees of the feebler churches
in renting their contributions, IN the form
of earnest wishes that the amount sent were
manifold larger than the sum remitted. On
the review of the years entire operation, the
Committee would report to the Assembly
that in the midst OF all the surrounding cir
eumstanees, and in view of the unpleasant
fact that appropriations made to the students
have not been fully paid up this year, as
thy were last year previous to the meeting
of the General Assembly, there is no ground
of serio as encouragement in the work. The
annropri >tions to the students of the Theo-
LOGICAL Sem inaries have been paid up entirely,
and the inde5 tedness Of the Committee is to
students in their collegiate or preliminary
course of study, amounting at this time to a
sum eomparatively inconsldersble. lt was
verv much to be desired that the amounts
due on appropriations to both classes OF stu
dents should have been met, as last year, oy
this time, but pursuing the rule adopted oy
the Assembly at its session IN Memphis 10
1896 that where the amount of money 10
the treasury at any time should De lnsutl
cient to pay all the students, those who were
the nearest the end &C their course OF study
sbould be preferred creditors, the Committee
has paid all that was due the students a
Union, Columbia and Princeton Seminaries
and nearly all due to the collegiate students
hoping to be enabled to close up the balance
dine them. on or before the close of the ses
sions of the Institutions where they are pur
suin0 their studies. The allusion to TIN
circumstance very naturally brings to tn
notice of the Assembly the action of the Ex
ecutive Committee on very important sub
iect connected with the work entrusted Il
them, and which, by order of the Committee
is herein presented to the Assembly for 1t
consideration and decision. The subject o
devising some plan whereby the Committe
should be enabled to close up its hnsn@a
nnaratinns without incurring indebtedness I