Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1891-12-24
SCHOOL AND CHURCH.

AS the delegates of the ccumenical
council left the church after the closing
session each member was presented by
Mrs Bishop Newman with spray Of
the ivy that covers the outside of the
church, the original root Of which was
brought from Wurtemburg, where Mar
tin Luther did such noble work.
There is said to be small religious
sect in this town the members of which
call themselves mates" 1t is COM
posed of men and women who are
married by Spirits" Every quarrel
or domestic problem is settled by the
same agency, the matter being stated
to the spirits in an open meeting. Most
of the members are Swedes. IN. Y.
Tribune.
The spiritual well-being of the Chi
nese in America is not forgotten. In
Boston, as far back as 1868 school was
opened for their benefit, and the work
has grown until eight large ones are
found; in them at least 600 of the 1000
Cinnamon receive instruction, and IS
have been received into the Boston
churches. In return one school for
three years has given annually Sl25 to
supports missionary in Hong Kong, and
recently an offering of STA was given to
maintain native preacher in that same
city.
Mrs. Elizabeth Dean, of Epson,
England, who is widely known in con-
nection with Miss Kate Marsden's work
for lepers, has given to Grace Episco-
pal church at Elizabeth, N. j., fifty city
lots, worth fifty thousand dollars, to be
used for church and charitable pur-
poses. The lots are centrally located
in crowded portion of the city, and
twenty are to be used as recreation and
play grounds for children and the rest
as sites for mission-halls, churches and
asylums, the building of which Mrs.
Dean leaves to generous Americans.
In the year 1886, less than sixteen
years after the landing of the Pilgrims
at Plymouth, the general court of the
colony of Massachusetts, bay voted to
give the sum of -four hundred pounds
tow ard a school or college," one-half to
be paid the following year, and the re-
mainder when the work was done.
Preliminary steps toward the establish
ment of a college at Newtown latter
ward Cambridge were taken the fol-
lowing year. In 1888, John Harvard,
non-conforming clergyman of En-
gland, who had been in the colony
about year, left at his death half of
his whole property and his entire lib
rary (about three hundred volumes) to
the institution.
"A fair index to the hold which com.
mon schools have upon country is
furnished by the number OF analpha-
bets among the recruits in the various
armies of Europe. The honor of lead
ing all the rest in this respect belongs
10 Sweden, where only 3 out of every
1000 recruits can neither read nor write.
In Denmark the number is 4; in Ger
many lowing almost entirely to the
Polish districts of eastern Prussia, Prus-
sia's quota alone being on this account
90; in Switzerland ID. In other coun-
tries the proportion is much larger than
in these four; Great Britain having SC
analphabets in each 1000 soldiers; the
Netherlands, IS; France, 104; Belgium,
1850; Austria, $50; Hungary, 1856; Greece
and Spain, each 400; Italy, 464; Russia,
us; Servia, 1903. The percentage in En-
gland is not surprising when it is re-
membered that the Indian troops are
included in the total. 1t is an impor'
tant fact in the history of modern civil
ization that the Protestant countries
are the great bulwark of popular edu'
cation