BUREAU FOR TEXAS.
King Industrial Home for Colored Girls, Marshall, Texas.

(Scholarship, $40.)

Immediately after the Chattanooga meeting, I went to Marshall to visit King Home. I found it in a flourishing condition. Sixty-seven girls were in the Home. I at once made arrangements for the building of the sewing annex, for which I had an appropriation. In January it was dedicated with appropriate services, and was a much-needed addition. The millinery department, established last year, was self-supporting from its inception, and gave over forty dollars to the building fund. This school is far-reaching in its influence and is a blessing to many of the homes. At the close of the school year, Miss Elliott, the faithful Superintendent for the past ten years, resigned. Miss King, the First Assistant, also resigned, and Miss Rose T. Robertson and Miss Sarah B. Simmons have been appointed to take their places. The missionaries are now in the field at work. King Home needs some repairs, such as papering, painting, and other minor things. There must also be some grading done about the new building, to give it a sightly appearance and to protect the foundation. I visited Austin, Texas, and arranged to purchase a building containing seven rooms at the cost of $3,500. There are three lots in connection with this place. There was a flaw in the title, so it did not come into our hands until May, when everything was quieted and perfectly satisfactory to our attorney. The location is all that could be desired, being just across the street from Samuel Huston College, with which our school affiliates. The President of the college gives us a room for the sewing classes for the present. Last year over eighty girls were in these classes. We can not accommodate more than ten or twelve girls in the Home, and an addition will have to be planned in the very near future. Miss Clara I. King, formerly of King Home, has been appointed Superintendent, with Miss Ellen Newton as Assistant.

This location is a large field for usefulness, as there are two hundred thousand colored people within the bounds of the West Texas Conference. They have long desired this Home. Mrs. Spriggs has been very active in presenting the needs of the school, and has raised over $700 towards its purchase. This will be called the Eliza Dee Home, in honor of Mrs. Dee, who gave $3,000 towards its purchase.

I also visited the Harrisburgh property. I was not impressed with its importance as a location for a Home. The stipulation in the deed, that $4,000 in permanent improvement was to be put upon the ground before the deed was valid, was a great hindrance. The donor died about a year ago, and the whole matter is now in the hands of our lawyer for adjustment. I greatly desire that the money contributed for this Home be now appropriated to the improvement of the Eliza Dee Home, as Harrisburgh is in the bounds of the same Conference as King Home at Marshall, and we will do a great work if we have one Home in each Conference.

I was never more impressed with the positive necessity for the work that the Woman's Home Missionary Society is doing for these colored women and girls than during this trip through the South. The greatest problem before us as a nation to-day is the uplift of these nine millions of helpless people. We often become impatient at results, forgetting that the education of a race is a slow and tedious process, and that it will not be accomplished in one, or two, nor three generations. The Anglo- Saxon is the product of all the best blood, education, and heredity of the centuries. And while the mass of the Negroes may be less apt to learn, yet there are enough who show that the Negro can learn, when properly environed, to make it worth while to labor and to wait.

It only remains for us to be persistent, patient, and loving, and in the spirit of the blessed Christ to do and dare and sacrifice. Then the coveted harvest of intelligence and Christian character will result.

Mrs. Lavanda Gassner Murphy, Secretary.