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FrnsT of all, and greatest, is the need of better home conditions for
the masses.
Those who are in the grasp of poverty and ignorance are in the majority.
We have many splendid homes, with culture and refinement,
where the children are coming up amid healthful and proper influence,
but we have many more where refinement and comforts are not known.
These are found in the morally and physically unhealthy portions of
our large cities, and in country places that are far removed from railroads
and civilizing influences. These homes are mo t prolific of children,
and multitudes of youth are coming daily to manhood and womanhood
without having had the very fundamental principles of a u eful
and ucce sful life. The e homes mu t
be reached and influenced for good.
The foundation of life i . laid in the
•
hom. Here, then, the problem begin .
The church a an agency ha a better
opportunity to begin the good work than
any other. The chool, with simply
mental culture, will adly fail unless the
youth are gi\'en right idea of life at the
fire ide. Thi bring u to ('On ider the
great need of intelligent mother, with
right ideas of morality and religion, and
who know the acredne and \'alue of
honest ind ustry.
The church and school must work
hand in hand to r ach thi neglected
cia. E peciaJly should the church
feel it to be its bounden duty to seek
out and help these unfortunate youth
through the Sunday-school by home missionary
efforts that are not second in
importance to foreign missionary enterpri
e. I sometimes fear that" distance
lends enchantment," and that in our
zeal to carry the light to tho e who are
far away, we neglect our opportunity to
do the work that i near u .
When by the combined efforts of the church and school we produce a
different class of parents, we can hope to see a great change in the young
citizens of the race.
The kind of education that is gi\'en in the schools i of the highest
importance. A literary training, even with the much-talked-of industrial
features, cannot produce trong men and women if that training
is Godless and little or no attention is given to morality. Teachers
should be selected with as much care a are preachers, el e it will
be found that one i tearing down while the other is building up.
Education hould be of the most practical kind. The head, the hand,
and the heart hould receive due and equal con ideration. Indu trialism
cannot make up for a lack of mental enlightenment and moral
integrity any more than can these guide the youth to ucce s in life
who ha\'e not been taught the dignity and importance of work. In
the work of education. none of these essential elements should be negI
cted or dealt with a being of minor importance.
The e uggestion are not merely a matter of opinion but are borne
out b.\· the hi tory of all race that ha\'e reached a high tate of ci\'ilization,
and our people will not be an exception to this uni\'ersal rule.
BISHOP L. ]. COPPIN. D.D.
Race
•
D.O.
Needs of the Negro
Bishop L. J. Coppin. D.D.
Residence: Philadelphia, Pa.
Greatest
Bishop Levi J. Coppin,
A. PI. E. Church
BlSHOP COPPIN presides over the conferences
of Maryland, Virginia, arid orth Carolina.
He was born of free parents, in
Fredericktown, Md., December 27, 1848.
He attributes the success of his early training
to maternal influence. "My mother,"
he says, "taught me to read and was the
supreme inspiration of my )'outhfullife, both
for knowledge and goodness."
He attended the public schools of his native
county after the war, and in 1869 went to
Wilmington, Del., where his studies were
continued under public and private instructors.
Mter teaching school for a brief period
he entered the ministry of the Mrican Methodist
Episcopal Church, "impelled by an
ever-present consciousness of a divine caU to
the work."
He studied theology in the Protestant Episcopal
Divinity School, Philadelphia, graduating
in 1887. In the work of the church he
was rapidly advanced, and in 1888 was elected
editor of the African MetJwdist Episcopal
Church Review.
Elected bishop in 1900, he spent four years
in charge of the work in South Mrica, \vith
headquarters at Cape Town. In addition to
the regular episcopal supervision of the churches in his district in the South
during the present quadrennium, holding annual conferences and ,~siting tbe
churches, his special work is in connection With .the development of KittreU
College, Kittrell, . C., one of the leading Southern institutes for the education
of the egro.
3!ll
