Missionary alliance 1888.pdf - DSpace

90 INTER-SEMINARY MISSIONARY ALLIANCE.VII. There should be In each college a special missionary committee,whose duty it should be to canvass for and secure the f ullpledged amount at the beginning of each college year, make the collections,select the candidate to be sent out, and whatever other mattersneed attention, all their action being brought before the associationfor adoption. This committee should consist of two men each fromthe Senior and Junior classes, and one each from the Sophomore andFreshman. In the case of special departments, as the Preparatory,for instance, such department should also have a representative. Inthe case of seminaries, it may be added that the plan of having twomembers from each of the three classes has been found satisfactory atUnion Seminary.VIII. Each college (and this section should be carefully noted)should send out its missionary under the auspices of the MissionaryBoard of the denomination which controls the college. The candidate.elected by the college as missionary wlll be subject to the approval ofthis board. In the case of colleges too small to support a missionary,two schools of the same denomination in any state or neighboringstates, should unite in providing for one. Wben this is impracticablethe money can be put into the hands of the Denominational Board to'be used in helping to pay the expenses of a man whom they are aboutto send out.IX. If possible, the missionary to be sent out by any college8ho~ld be a graduate of the college, who is finishing a seminary ormedical course. . When none such is available, the support of agraduate already III the field or some other missionary suggested bythe board is adnsed.X. The system of support should be at least upon the basis offou~ years, each student upon entering the college pledging himselfto gl\'e.not less.than a certain amount yearly wh'lI ehe..lSIneOIIege.H aVlng put thiS plan upon a four year basis the 0. .. . , nIythOlDg needfuItoperpetu&.te It acl ~nfi 1H t um IS' to have the incoml'n g s t u d en ts rna k e upthe de Ii Cit left by the outgoing Senior class.XI. Payments of subscriptions can best be mad k! b thte . I fl ' ewee y y e8ya matlc p an 0 g vlDg. If the matter is presented to the studentsin au emphatic way,.there will be few studentswh ' 110 WI not feel ableto ma ke an offerlUg of ten cents a week.ButI' f 200students give.butten cenh, a week for the forty college weeks,the sum totaIwill.amountto $800, so that no college of more than 200 8tud t hable to 8UppOrt a mis8ionary.en s oug t to feel un-XII. Special questions, as for instance wh th th fbe k d'b' ' e er e acuity should&8 e to contn ute, or In co·educational IIh'co eges what share theyoung women 8 ou Id have 10 the movement rna b I .Uon of each college. lye eft to the dlscre-In reply to a number of questions inclosed in this letter, a great•SEMINARY AND COLLEGE ~(1prORT OF MrS~JONARJES. 91deal of information was elicited, much of which would be interesting,but the barest resume is possible here. Returns were received from127 colleges and acadamies,- oot including seminaries, which will r9-ceive separate attention. These have an average attendance of 23,058students, and an active Young ~l e n 's Christian Association member·ship of 5,747 with 682 volunteers for the foreign fi eld. In addition tothose colleges heretofore mentioned, twenty-two report aggregate missionarycollections of $1,425.In regard to the co-operative plan just presented, twenty-fivethought that it would be feasible in their college, including such asBowdoin, Cornell which estimates 400 givers, Southern Illinois N orm~l,University of Illinois, Madison University, Olivet College (1tlich.),where President Butterfield is much interested and will push the m at~ter, Park, (Mo.), Shurtleff, (Ills.), which is planning to support a missionaryin connection with some neighboring college, University ofNorth Carolina, Vanderbilt, (Tenn.), and Washington and Lee, (Va.)In addition to these there are twenty-six more who are not pre ~pared to say that the plan would be feasible, and yet would like to cooperatt'with other colleges in trying to make a success of it. Theseinclude Dartmouth, IllinoIs College, Lafayette, University of Minnesota,Syracuse, which estimates 150 to 200 givers, rniversityof Vermont, University of Virginia, and the University of Wisconsin, whichestimates 300 givers. Then there are fifteen more, notably Williamsand Hillsdale, the latter hoping tt) furnish a missionary this F all insome way, which speak hopefully though not definitely as to whatshare they might be able to take. This makes a total of sixty-six fromwhom something more or less extensive might be expected. It must berernem bered, however, that these estimates do not represent the feelingof all the students, but is merely the opinion of the president or secretaryof the college Young Men's Christian Association, after consultationwith half a dozen of the leading students, and hence cannot be acceptedas final; some being possibly too hopeful in view of the sanguinetemperament of the writers and his advisers, and the majority too fainthearted,in view of what seems the greatness of the undertaking.Harvard and the University of Rochester were among the larger collegesgiving no encouragement, while Yale, Amherst, Oberlin and afew other leading colleges were Dot heH.rd from. A hopeful prophecyof success lies in the fact that almost without exception the YoungMen's Christian ,A..ssociation state secretaries of California, Indiana,Michigan, New York, OhiO, Virginia and Wisconsin send letters ofunqualiried approval and proffers of their influence and assistance.But to what extent can this plan be a.pplied to the seminaries inthe Alliance? Of course some of the seminaries will desire to act inconnection with the colleges of their own state or denomination, yetthey should also be included in a general missionary committee in