Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/138

122 monies and other valuable objects in the name of this Association in such depositories or safety vaults as may be designated by the Business Committee. He and his Assistant shall be required by the Executive Council to give bond as the Executive Council may designate. The Secretary-Treasurer shall be ex-officio a trustee of the Association, and a member of the Business Committee.

The Director and Editor shall be the executive of the Association when it or the Executive Council is not in session. He shall devise plans for the collection of documents, direct the studies of members of the Association, and determine what matter shall be published in the Journal of Negro History. He shall employ a business manager and clerk, the last mentioned to serve also as the Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer. He may employ other assistants for administrative work and upon the approval of the Executive Council may employ specialists to prosecute the research to be undertaken by the Association. The Director and Editor shall be ex-officio a trustee of the Association, and a member of all standing committees except the Business Committee.

The Executive Council shall have charge of the general interests of the Association, including the election of members of the Association on recommendation of the Director, the calling of meetings, the collection and the disposition of funds.

The report of the Director was read and adopted as was also the report of the Secretary-Treasurer, which was referred to an auditor. Important extracts from these reports follow.

The work of the Association has been successfully promoted. In some respects the Association has merely maintained its former status. Considered from another point of view, however, a decided advance in several ways has been noted. In the fields in which the work has advanced the progress has been so significant that the year through which the Association has just passed has been the most prosperous in its history.

The subscription list of the Journal of Negro History does not show a large increase for the reason that it became necessary more than a year ago to raise the fee from one to two dollars a year and the current stringency in the money market has borne so heavily upon teachers, and students to whom this publication must appeal, that they have been unable to give it more liberal support. Among the subscribers and members, however, there has been manifested a deep interest in the matter published and a keen appreciation of its value in the uplift of the Negro.

The membership of the Association for the same reason has about remained the same as that of last year. The interest of the members in the work and the value of the direction of the Association to them, however, have both unusually increased. This interest has culminated in the organization of clubs under the supervision of the Director, who through them has been able to give considerable stimulus to the work in remote parts of the country. Among the clubs thus organized should be mentioned those of San Antonio, Louisville, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and New York. Classes doing the same work under the instruction of teachers have been formed in most of the accredited Negro secondary schools and colleges. The work of such classes at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, the Virginia Theological Seminary and College, Hampton Institute, Morehouse College, Atlanta University, Paine Col-