undisguised contempt. We must, therefore, without delay make our Western colleges respectable and efficient, or they will be shamed out of existence by their direct juxtaposition to those institutions which have so long represented and adorned the cause of learning in the older States. This consideration detracts nothing from the necessity of colleges in these new and remote States. No facilities of communication can ever bring the mass of our population to feel the influences of colleges, however excellent, located in different States, as they would feel one located in their own. A proper movement in behalf of liberal learning can never be produced in any of these States except by means of home institutions. I am, therefore, instructed by the trustees of Illinois College, to request the consent of the directors that efforts may be early commenced within the field of the Society's operation, to raise the sum of twenty thousand dollars in aid of this endowment fund of this college; and to assure the Directors, that whenever that sum shall have been received, there will remain no further necessity that this college should receive aid from the Society. I also deem it proper to state, that in case this consent is granted, no pains will be spared to make such arrangements that I can myself, as early as March or April next, co-operate with the agents of the Society in endeavoring to raise the sum desired, and I pray God to give you wisdom in your deliberations and discussions on this, to my mind very serious subject, and to the friends of Christian learning, the heart and the hand to meet the crisis into which it seems to me Divine Providence has brought us. A portion of this twenty thousand dollars the trustees are willing to take in the shape of permanent scholarships.

Wabash College.

One of the Professors, in renewing their application for aid, says: "Our expenses are somewhat increased, so that to keep us from running in debt we need from the Society the year to come $2,000, which sum, in behalf of the Faculty and Trustees, is respectfully solicited, and I trust with some sense of our obligation to a generous public, who have hitherto extended to us the helping hand so liberally. Our subscriptions in Indiana towards buildings have been advanced somewhat during the past year. The precise amount I cannot state. But we feel encouraged to hope that we shall be able to put up the large building for Chapel and other public uses next year. The Normal School building will be inclosed this fall and finished next spring. Our term opens with an increased number of students, and our prospects for usefulness are fair."

Knox College.

The President of Knox College, in a renewed application for aid in behalf of that Institution, makes the following state

ments:

1. All the college officers, in addition to the labors ordinarily imposed on the brethren in other colleges, perform duties daily in the other depart

ments of the institution. 2. The income of those departments has exceeded the expenses by $1,010. 3. I have received some volunteer aid for my own support from different persons, of which I have, as they have directed, credited the College $500. Without this, and the aid from the academical department, the College would not have received money enough to keep it in operation, as but little money has been paid in interest on notes; that is, on the "productive fund," and as stated, part of the "income" is credited in the students' notes for tuition, etc. 4. Again: The trustees have expended between six and seven thousand dollars in building during the year covered by this report. 5. Also, College lands have been sold, increasing somewhat the permanent funds of the College, but leaving a cash debt against our treasury, accumulated wholly during the past year, of $2,748 08.

This debt we had hoped to have avoided, but it must be met, and unless our pro rata proportion of aid from the College Society is raised, or your income or ours from other sources vastly increased, this debt of something less than three thousand dollars, will consume and cripple our cash means so as to deprive us of the ability to procure additions to our library, cabinets and apparatus (additions for which our classes are now actually suffering) for several years to come. We shall soon be compelled to procure additions to our library amounting to some thousands of dollars. Our main public building, which is to contain our permanent public rooms, is still to be erected, and must cost from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. But the executive committee have added two hundred dollars to our current expenses by increase of salaries for the coming year, and further increase must inevitably soon be made.

We are grateful to God, to you, and through you to the donors for the help extended to us, by which we have been enabled to give our energies to the work of instruction.

Iowa College.

Rev. Ephraim Adams, in behalf of the trustees of Iowa College, in a communication to the Director, says:

In renewing our application to you for continued aid, first permit us to express our gratitude for the readiness with which you have admitted our cherished Institute to the circle of similar institutions aided by the Society which you represent. In itself your aid was timely. Indeed, without it we see not how we could have advanced and enlarged as the Providence of God seemed to indicate as our duty to do. Besides, our hearts are cheered by your confidence in us, while our connection with you puts us in the public eye on a sort of vantage-ground. We will not forget, in gratitude, to say that we trust the good hand of our God has been upon us.

Our library has been increased in value by donations thereto to the amount, perhaps, of $200, and $2,000 have been paid to us as part of the help promised by our old friend Dea. C —, of Connecticut. Also, after paying up all the expenses of the present year, and collecting our dues, we shall have something like $400 to expend upon the library and apparatus. Then can we begin another year upon our old principle: "Freedom from debt." Besides this, at the last meeting of the General Association of Iowa, held at Muscatine in June last, nearly $350 were pledged, and a part paid, by the brethren and sisters present, as the commencement of a professorship. 'Tis proposed, so far as practicable, to give our churches

the opportunity in the course of the year to contribute for the same object. And it may be well to remark, that we intend to adopt the policy of annually bringing the institution in some shape before the churches for their patronage, that it may grow in their sympathies with their growth and strengthen with their strength. At the last meeting of the trustees, the condition of the College seemed to require the addition of two to the corps of instructors. They accordingly voted to obtain a principal of the preparatory department and a tutor.

We want, therefore, $1,000, which we ask of your Society, simply to keep the machinery running. Then we want as much as we possibly can get from our friends, any where and every where, for the endowment of professorships and the erection of suitable buildings, the increase of the library, apparatus, &c., &c., as you very well know. We ask, as you perceive, simply enough to meet the current expenses, in view of our own efforts in other directions for permanent investments in money or otherwise, which efforts, by the way, we shall ever feel bound to make in consistency with the relation we sustain to your Society. In making our application, we deem it necessary to do no more than present this simple

statement.

With our enterprise, its nature, importance, &c., you are acquainted, with our efforts you sympathize, and we trust you will be ready to continue the helping hand. We wish you the blessing of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, in your efforts to promote a truly Christian education at the West, which is so intimately connected with the best interest of our country, and through it, of the world.

Beloit College.

The President of this Institution writes:

The year just closed has been in every respect the most prosperous the institution has yet seen. For the first time the balance between our income and our outlay is on the side of the income. Reckoning what is due on the earnings of the College for the past year as if collected, the debt which has been slowly accumulating from year to year up to the present time, appears reduced by nearly two hundred dollars. The number of students is considerably greater than that of any previous year, and their general character for strength and maturity of mind is also higher than ever. There has been an evident and gratifying advancement of scholarship and general order and subordination among the members of the institution, and to crown all, under the special influence of the Holy Spirit, eight or ten of the students have been hopefully converted to God, and the measure of Christian character and influence in the College has been considerably increased. These evident signs of prosperity have greatly encouraged the hearts of those directly concerned in the enterprise, and have gained for it additional sympathy and confidence with the public at home and abroad. The fact that the amount of appropriations received during the year from your Society has been larger by half than that of any previous year, will account in no small part for these happy results. You will trace in every feature of this statement the realization, in measure, of your ains and hopes. On the other hand, in the increased favor of your cause with the churches, which has enabled you to enlarge your benefactions to the various institutions to whose aid you minister, we find the ground of greater confidence than ever, and the stimulus to more vig

orous and untiring efforts in all our important work. This identification in aim and labor and success of our action with yours, stands out more clearly year by year, and gives a peculiar interest to the association which unites us. We are reaping the benefits of your prosperity, and would make you partakers in full of our honor and joy, while to God belongs all the glory of all we may both accomplish; as it is, I trust, for the advancement of Christ's kingdom that in our respective spheres we labor.

The College has hitherto expended almost nothing directly in purchasing books for the library. Some sixteen hundred volumes have been collected by contributions from various sources, but they are of quite a miscellaneous character. Every department of learning which comes into the course of instruction demands a series of works more or less costly, to be furnished at hand for consultation or thorough investigation by both faculty and students. Without such provision, it will be impossible to establish or maintain such a standard of scholarship as is required of every true college. There is no way to secure this provision but by going into the market prepared to purchase with money what we really want. The same thing might be said of sundry items of apparatus.

Our estimates have uniformly been made with a careful regard to our actual wants. We have never yet received from the society all we have asked and needed, and yet we liave never been able to work through the year at an expenditure less than our estimate. The balance between the actual expenditure and the receipts has either been relieved by means derived from unexpected sources or has passed into the debt. These remarks are made only that the Society's Board may understand our case as it is.

The labor of instruction will be increased the coming year by our having four college-classes. We must, therefore, be at some additional expense under that head. The general interests of the College will also require some one of the faculty to be relieved of a part of the labor hitherto performed.

Wittenberg College.

The following extracts from a circular, addressed to the members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, in behalf of the Faculty and Board of Directors of Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, by Professor F. W. Conrad, will show the earnestness with which the friends of this institution are prosecuting efforts for its endowment among the Lutheran Churches:

DEARLY BELOVED:-The object of this circular is, to communicate to you the pressing wants of Wittenberg College, and to enlist your co-operation, in carrying out the plans of the Board of Directors to relieve them. The liabilities of the institution are about $10,000, which the city of Springfield has undertaken to meet. To supply the wants of the Collegiate Department, place it above the effects of fluctuations, keep the tuition at a low rate, relieve the Professors from over-taxation, increase their number, and render more efficient their instructions, the Board. have adopted a plan, to raise $100 annually for five years, on an average, in every pastoral charge pertaining to the field of the institution. Both their Theological Professors are engaged in the prosecution of this plan.

Your special attention is requested to the plan of endowing two Theological Professorships. You are aware that the primary object of the founding of this institution, was the raising up and sending forth of a pious

and educated ministry, to supply the wants of our destitute Church in the West. No tuition being paid for instruction in Theology, the Professors must be supported by the interest of funds devoted to that purpose. Having no endowment for this department, efforts were made to induce a number of our members in the East to support one of them, and the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education of the West, to support the other for five years, with the understanding, that during that time these Professorships should be endowed.

To accomplish this indispensable object, $20,000 must be secured, until the time when our present sources of support shall cease. Of this sum, there is subscribed and paid about $5,000. The plan adopted to secure the remaining $15,000 is the following: to induce one hundred individuals in our Churches to pay $100 each in five annual instalments, at 6 per cent. interest, until the principal shall be paid. Thus $10,000 will be realized. The College Society voted the institution $1,000 annually for five years, toward the support of its professors.

Now, how shall we urge upon you, in the brief space allotted to us, in this circular, the importance, yea, the necessity, of your taking a part in this work? Shall we remind you of the necessity of this institution? Have you not seen it in the desolations of our Zion? Have you not heard it in the wailings of the destitute in the West? And have you not mourned over our losses as a Church, for the want of it years ago? Must we recall its past history, tell you of its difficulties, recount its discouragements, narrate its afflicting providences, and describe the sacrifices made for it, in order to arouse your sympathies, and draw forth your helping hand? Need we turn your eye to the page of the history of its successes, in educating the minds, cultivating the hearts, and directing the lives of the many precious young men who have received its instructions? Follow those who have gone forth, to preach the gospel at home and in heathen lands; those who are engaged in instructing the youth of our country; and those who have devoted themselves to the various useful pursuits of life, and estimate the good which the institution is accomplishing through them!

Need we attempt to convince you that it is the hope of a large portion of our Church in the West? that without it we cannot develop our educational material, nor improve our people intellectually, nor supply our pulpits with educated and devoted ministers, to elevate them religiously, and that its success depends upon the response which is given to the different calls we are now making? Dare we not hope that one hundred men can be found, who will respond to this call, and unite in endowing one Theological Professorship, and thereby save the one-half of the endowment of another? If MANY individuals in other denominations endow Professorships ALONE, and if single congregations do the same, can it be possible that there are not one hundred individuals in ALL our congregations who will endow one TOGETHER? And while in other Churches, MANY individuals contribute to Colleges and Seminaries, by thousands and tens of thousands, are there NONE in ours who will begin to give by scores and hundreds?

The first effort to procure funds was made in Springfield, and resulted in a subscription of $5,000, to be paid in five annual instalments with interest. The plan for raising $100 annually for five years in each pastoral charge connected with the Institution, has been successfully prosecuted, and this amount, on an average, secured in each charge which could be visited. The plan of procuring one hundred individuals