A.M.A., may be found the epitome of a Christian home. Such schools
furnish potent object lessons; such are the factors of the problem in
answer to the question of how to meet the needs of the colored women and
girls, who are to preside over the homes of eight millions of people, who
had no home twenty-three years ago. Washington, alone, has a population
of eighty thousand colored people, and more than forty thousand of these
are women and girls.

It is said that the "hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world." It
matters not whether that hand be black or white, but it does matter
whether that hand be intelligent or ignorant. They not only need the
education of the schools to develop their minds, and industrial training
to prepare their hands for the practical duties of life, but Christian
education, such as is given in the schools of the Association.

More than three thousand women and thousands of men have gone out under
the A.M.A., in school, home and church, for the uplifting, Christianizing
and elevating of our people.

Eternity alone will reveal the work that these Christian heroines and
heroes have done in the Master's name. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews
would need be extended to give to them their rightful place in the role
of achievements of faith. We need not wait for eternity, we now see some
of the grand results; their memory is already engraven upon the hearts,
and their spirit infused into the life of thousands of educated colored
young men and women, who have gone out among their people, carrying
educated minds, trained hands and warm hearts, as an outgrowth of that
labor which has not been in vain. This magnificent record of Christian
endeavor and conquest has largely been made possible by the foresight,
energy and fidelity of the many who have been and are at the head of the