een established at such painstaking and cost,
and to meet the demand for the new phases of help that can now be
given.

That some of our church woman in the North are interested, is shown
by the twenty-eight thousand dollars of contributions received from
them during the past year. That they are alive to the advantage of
reaching this field through the American Missionary Association and
thus keeping in sympathy with the work of the churches in their
annual contributions, is shown in the formation of State Unions, for
direct co-operation with us. We consider it especially favorable that
the purpose of these State organizations is to increase the flow of
money and other forms of helpfulness through the regular channels to
this part of the home field; that thus the young people and strangers
who are gathered into the church auxiliaries are being interested in
the history and work of the American Missionary Association and that
the children--the future church members--also are learning to give to
it, for the sake of the people to whom it ministers.

It has been a great help to us, that in the past year the Woman's Aid
of Maine sustained four teachers, that the Woman's Aid of Vermont
contributed so faithfully to their adopted school at McIntosh, Ga.,
and Connecticut ladies to the Industrial School for colored girls in
Thomasville. We cannot speak too highly of the efficiency of the New
York Woman's Union, which pledges us a definite sum, increasing the
amount annually, and keeping its pledge. The Ohio Union has sustained
Miss Collins' mission in Dakota and a teacher in the South. The
Minnesota Union met nearly two-thirds the cost of our school at
Jonesboro', Tenn., and the Iowa Union more than one-third the expense
of Beach Institute, Savannah, Ga. The ladies of other States have
helped in the girls' department of our school at Tougaloo, Miss., the
schools at Athens and Mobile, Ala., Austin, Tex., Williamsburg, Ky.
and Santee Agency, Neb. These friends have been in communication with
the schools they have aided, learning of the needs and economical
measures of help. They have been permitted to know for themselves the
hopeful results of patient Christian endeavor. For many of our
scholars are beginning quietly and persistently to do noble Christian
work in the locality in which they live, relieving the destitute,
reading, singing, praying with the sick and infirm and themselves
growing stronger and wiser in religious work