Chapter II: Part 2

"The old Indian linked his hunting and corn planting and simple arts to religion. He lived by the help of his gods. We are trying not to destroy this faith, but to transfer it to the living God, and to make it 'work by love,' instead of by selfishness. Our little girls in the Home are learning to keep house and sew and cook, because it is the work of a child of God to do these things well. We are trying to teach our neighbors by word and example to farm and build and make homes in a way that will be becoming to a redeemed man. They must understand that the Gospel means diligence in business, honesty, carefulness, co-operation, skill, cleanness of heart and body, health and prosperity, and any other virtue that makes life worth living now and always. We think our example in raising seventy bushels of oats or two hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre, garden vegetables, improved cattle and hogs, well-kept horses, small fruits and sheltering trees and pretty shrubs, in what is classed as a semi-arid land, is a part of the Gospel of Christ, who came to make all 'deserts blossom as the rose.'

"When our former Mission school boys are found taking hold of agricultural work according to present-day methods and earning a support for their growing families, building their meeting-place, and making some contributions to the church work abroad, we feel that the foundation of a Christian community is being laid.

"The clouds return sometimes. There comes a recrudescence of heathenism. Yet faith sees still the leaven at work. An old man's daughter went away to our Santee School and returned a believer in the Christian way. She taught her father what she had learned, and prayed for him. He yielded to her faith and threw away his fetishes after a hard struggle with all the past and present environment that bound him. Then at once his instinct was to make a better home for his family. He must get away from the heathen village, with its squalor, and impurity, and idolatry. It is true that environment does not regenerate the soul, but the renewed soul transforms the environment. Better conditions are evidence of the new life. On the contrary, when some fall back to heathenism, they fall into slovenly attire, ill-kept homes, and neglected fields." [Footnote: Rev. C. L. Hall, D.D., American Missionary Association.]

Alaska is a post which beyond any other in the American church demands courage and endurance, both physical and moral.

"The natives of Anvik invited the missionary to visit their village, 450 miles by water from St. Michael.

"These natives were Ingiliks, partly Indian and partly Eskimo. They lived in underground houses and were superstitious, dirty, ignorant, and degraded. Rude buildings were erected for a mission house and the schoolhouse. In 1894 the first church was erected, the money for it being a part of the first United Offering of the Women's Auxiliary. Little by little the people came out of their holes in the earth and built themselves houses. The community has been physically and morally transformed. A saw-mill, the gift of a generous Eastern layman, has been a most practical means of evangelising, not only furnishing lumber for houses, but healthful occupations for the men. This transformation has been wrought, not by legislation or civilization as such, but by the consistent teaching and example of a devoted Christian man and his splendid helpers. 'Through these long years, in the loneliness of this far-away station, the missionary has remained the kind, wise, spiritual shepherd of these native souls in the wilderness. The mission has pursued high ideals, and has ministered spiritually and helpfully to a vast region.'

"A gold strike was made at Nome, and with the first rush of eager prospectors went in a missionary, who aided with his own hands in the building of the church. Though the saloon men were bidding for the only available lumber, the bishop got it first to build a clubhouse for the men, the only competitor of fourteen saloons.

"So he goes back and forth across his great district, up and down its rivers in the short summer time--formerly by boat or canoe, but now in a launch, the 'Pelican.' In the winter he is away across the trackless wilderness, a thousand miles or more, behind his dogs, cheerily facing hardships and making light of dangers, carrying his life in his hand as he goes about his daily work.

"Particularly is he interested in the preservation and betterment of the native races, the Eskimos and the Indians, endangered by their contact with the white man and their own lack of knowledge. Everywhere his hand is raised and his voice is heard in their behalf.

"Alaska is the land of one great river, without which it could scarcely have been explored--much less occupied and inhabited. The Yukon is the great highway. Over its waters in the brief summer, and upon its frozen surface in the winter, go travelers by boat and sled, and among them the representatives of the church. Familiar to the dwellers along its banks is the little 'Pelican' bearing the missionaries, with a half-breed engineer and the faithful dogs. Everywhere along the river in the summer time may be found the temporary camps of the Indians, to whom the short fishing season means food through the long winter for themselves and their dogs. Here a stop is made at a native camp to baptize a baby--there a marriage ceremony is performed; a communion service is held or a call made at a fishing camp to pick up some boys and take them to a far-away boarding school. The work is as varied as it is far-reaching. Not a mission point along the river is neglected, and places which formerly could never be visited by the hand-paddled canoe now look forward once a year to the coming of the 'Pelican,' and wait to hear the familiar throbbing of her motor, as does the New Yorker for his morning mail, or the farmer for the postman's whistle.

"Fairbanks, the metropolis of central Alaska, was a new mining camp when the missionary Bishop secured an early entrance for the church. The log building which was a chapel on Sunday became a reading-room on week-days for the rough-clad miners. A hospital was built and it ministered to the sick through the range of a wide territory. Missions both to white men and to Indians have spread along the valley of the river on either hand, and now Fairbanks is the center of what is known as the Tanana Valley Mission, with half a score of workers, schools and missions, hospitals and reading rooms, distributing tons of literature in lonely mining camps, and carrying everywhere the message of the Master.

"Over on the coast, at Cordova, may be found the unique settlement work called 'The Red Dragon,' a clubhouse for men which on Sundays is converted into a place of worship. Missions in Alaska minister to human need as a preliminary to and accompaniment of an effective preaching of the Gospel." [Footnote: Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church.]

These pictures of the power of Home Missions to restore--to give capacity--are merely typical, and stand for the thousands of others unrecorded except as the lives of the reclaimed individuals and communities make their indelible imprint upon our national life.

Surely through the demonstration of such reclaiming power the consciousness must grow that ignorance, degradation, vice, crime, and bitter poverty need not be the inevitable accompaniment of a great civilization, but that these diseased spots in the social fabric are abnormal and curable, if to their removing is directed first the power of Christ in the inner life, and for the outer a social regeneration which will substitute physical conditions that do not menace, but make for righteousness.

"In haunts of wretchedness and need
On shadowed thresholds dark with fears,
From paths where hide the lures of greed
We catch the vision of Christ's tears.

"The cup of water given for Thee
Still holds the freshness of Thy grace;
Yet long these multitudes to see
The sweet compassion of Thy face."

III

AN EDUCATIVE FORCE

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

"After all, it is the children who are the important factors of our nation, and every one of them neglected is a reproach to every Christian, man or woman, in the churches who has a dollar or a voice. When the Spartans were demanded to give fifty children as hostages, they wisely replied, 'We would rather give one hundred of our most distinguished men.'

"It is an irrefutable fact that the work with the children pays the best dividends to the state and nation. There is a Doric oracle which says, 'If the Athenians want good citizens let them put whatever is beautiful into the ears of their sons.' If we Americanize this oracle it would read, 'If the Americans want good citizens let them put whatever is beautiful and useful into the ears of their sons and daughters.'"

* * * * *

It is instructive to note the inter-relation and interaction of forces and influences that have been powerful factors in national development, and to consider their sources.

The American passion for education had its roots far back in Holland, in the period when that country was the world's great intellectual center, as well as the world's leader in commerce and manufacturing. The most powerful single factor in shaping Colonial thought and character was the Bible. It was from Holland that England received its first Bible printed in the English tongue.

It is said that under the persecution of Phillip II and the Duke of Alva, fully one hundred thousand Hollanders crossed the channel to find homes in England.

Industrious, self-supporting, self-respecting men, and women they were, refugees for freedom and for conscience' sake--among them were scholars, bankers, merchants, and intelligent, plain people. They came from a land of free schools and universities.

The counties in England in which the Hollanders settled sent the Pilgrims and the Puritans to America. These counties also gave birth to the University of Cambridge; the Puritan movement in England was largely under the leadership of men who had studied in Cambridge, and it was that educational center of broad culture, thought, and inspiring ideals which furnished America the first scholars and leaders of New England.

The first free school of America was opened by the Hollanders in Manhattan in 1633. It was known as the Collegiate School, and though it has changed somewhat in character, it is still one of the leading preparatory schools of New York City.

Regard for education thus came to this country with the colonists, though not all the colonies attached the same importance to it.

In the Home countries of the colonists, the schools had been an adjunct to the churches. It was natural, therefore, that the impetus for the establishment of schools in this country should come from the church.

"One of the first provisions made by the Virginia company in their settlement of Jamestown was to set aside land for the use of a college to 'teach Indian children the rudiments of religion and the Latin language,' and money was collected in England to establish a school which should prepare children for this college. The failure of the company a few years later defeated these plans."

"Twenty years after the landing at Plymouth, the Massachusetts Colony ordained by law that every child should be taught to read and write and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the country. A little later in the same section, every township, when it numbered fifty householders, was required to support a teacher, and towns numbering a hundred householders, to establish a school to teach Latin. These were rude pioneer experiments, for the conditions which surrounded them were rude; their importance lay in the fact that they gave education a first place in public interest and accustomed people to think of education as a function of the community." [Footnote: American Ideals, Character and Life--Hamilton Wright Mabie.]

From these feeble beginnings has come that greatest bulwark of the Republic--the free school.

It lies at the very foundation of our national life. It makes possible our democracy. A helpful government by the people is not possible if the people are ignorant and superstitious.

It is the greatest institution for citizenship. "Through it come knowledge of the meaning of our institutions, the interpretation of our national past, and a reverence for the national symbol--the flag."

It is a fusing force whereby children of many nationalities, differing in feelings, sympathies, purposes, and class, become Americans.

The forty-eight States in the year 1912 spent $450,000,000 on the public schools of the country. The nation's tobacco bill for the same period was nearly three times as great, and it spent five times as much for liquor.

Even with this large expenditure, the provision for the school population of the country is, in places, fearfully inadequate. In our large cities, if the truant and labor laws were properly enforced, the lack of school provision would be still more apparent. In New York City alone more than 100,000 children are attending school but half the time.

As we turn to study the need for Mission Schools, and their place as an educative force, it is well that we should seek to realize something of the splendid achievements of our public schools as well as where they seriously fail.

Their efficiency differs with the vision and effectiveness with which they are administered by the different states.

Many states have added incalculably to the usefulness of the schools by relating the curriculum to life through industrial and vocational training, but much remains to be accomplished in attaining a proper balance in the adjustment of the cultural and the practical in the public school courses.

The state of Ohio affords an interesting illustration of the wider relation of the public schools to the life of the school population.

"In the winter of 1914, nearly one thousand boys and girls of Ohio, in five special trains, were sent on a tour which embraced the cities of Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, as a reward for their efficiency in agriculture and domestic science. The people of Ohio have found that it pays to encourage thrift and industry in their children, for since these "corn tours," as they are termed, were started, the annual value of the corn crop of Ohio has become almost twenty million dollars _more_ than it formerly was." [Footnote: Outlook, Dec. 16, 1914.]

Public School, No. 23, of Mulberry Bend, New York, stands in the heart of an Italian district of more than 100,000 souls, and draws also from the great Chinese section. Various other nationalities in less degree contribute their quota, so that the school ministers to the children of twenty-nine different nationalities.

This school is fortunate in having a teacher of unusual ability and magnetism for its new students in English. A visit to her room on the top floor well repays the effort of exploration in a very foreign quarter of America's greatest city, and the long climb up the winding cement stairs of the school building.

As you enter, the class is asked to bid you "Good morning," and the familiar greeting comes to you in the soft Italian accent, mingled with the higher-keyed voices of the Japanese and Chinese.

The group of ten Chinese young men impress you by their alertness, neatness of appearance, and evident eagerness to learn. An Italian boy who had been set at a trade when very young is now having a belated chance to learn to read. A number of girls of various sizes help to make up the class, with little Italian Mary, ten years old, quite new to America, beautiful and winning in spite of her unkempt appearance and poor clothing.

With the exception of two who had acquired a little English, the class entered school three months before with no knowledge of English. All are able to write their names and addresses and simple sentences in English on the blackboard.

They can go through the transaction of buying a newspaper, explaining each action involved, and making correct payment or exacting correct change.

When questioned, they give quickly and correctly the names of the President of the United States, the Governor of New York, the Mayor of New York City, and answer other questions on civic affairs.

It was deeply stirring to see a little Italian whose patois English was scarcely intelligible, step forward, with conscious pride, to be the standard-bearer and hold the flag while the class, with eager enthusiasm, saluted, touching foreheads and extending arms at full length as they repeated, the foreign tongues giving queer twists to the words:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indissoluble, with liberty and justice for all."

Many night classes likewise afford opportunity for new Americans to learn English. Public School No. 95, located on Clarkson Street in the old Greenwich Village of New York, where now many Italians, Irish and a few Jews find homes, carries forward a remarkable service to its neighborhood.

Here the opportunity of helpful evening recreation is given to girls and boys. These evenings include basket ball games and athletics, Boy Scout activities, moving picture exhibits, public concerts and meetings, with such speakers on popular themes as Commissioner of Corrections Katharine B. Davis. Other public schools give carpentry training in actual shop work, qualifying the students for positions in trade. They also prepare students to pass the civil service examinations for public positions and give suitable training for positions on the Police and Fire Department.

The establishment of continuation schools in a few stores and factories is an inestimable boon to some of the toilers thrust too early into the livelihood struggle.

The employers are finding it to their interest to spare their workers for certain hours and days for such schooling because of the increased efficiency and intelligence of their service.

A peculiarly neglected group in the foreign quarters of all our cities are the older women--workers and mothers in the homes. To these Home Missions is striving to bring some knowledge of the tongue of the new country through classes arranged especially for them.

It is startling to find that the United States census for 1910 reports a greater percentage of illiteracy among native whites of native parentage than among native whites of foreign parentage. The proportion of children from five to fourteen years attending school is greater among those of foreign parentage and foreign birth than among native Americans of two or more generations.

For the entire population over ten years of age, the following table gives the percentage of illiteracy:

Foreign Foreign
Native or Mixed born Native
Parentage Parentage Whites Negro[A]

United States as a whole....... 3-7 1.1 12.7 30.4

The North...................... 1.4 0.9 12.7 10.5 The South...................... 7.7 4.3 18.8 33.3 The West....................... 1.7 0.8 9.5 7.0

For the children of school age from ten to fourteen, the following table shows the percentage of illiteracy:

United States as a whole....... 2.2 0.6 3.5 18.9

New England ................ 2.2 0.6 3.5 18.9 South Atlantic................. 5.0 0.8 5.3 18.9 East South Central............. 5.8 0.9 11.4 20.7 West South Central............. 4.1 11.2 34.6 22.4 Etc............................ --- ---- ---- ----

[Footnote A: United States Census for 1910].

In some Western states the percentage of illiteracy is as low as one-tenth of 1 per cent.

* * * * *

An examination of schools in fifty-two cities representing with fairness the entire United States, shows that the majority of children who enter complete only the fifth grade; of one thousand children of school age, only one hundred and twenty graduate from the grammar school and six from the high school. [Footnote: Henry C. Vedder--The Gospel of Jesus and the Problems of Democracy.]

It is axiomatic that if children are to be spared by law the strain of enforced labor upon immature bodies and minds, and to be properly conserved because they are the most precious of the nation's resources, they must be prepared by suitable training for the life work that lies ahead--"making a living being an indispensable foundation for making a life."

Through special circumstances certain parts of our country have been slow in developing the free school so as to make possible even a most elementary education for their children. This is notably true of sections in the South. From the early days when the University of Virginia entered upon its honored service to higher education, the schools and colleges of the South have been influential, but through the force of peculiar economic condition these have ministered to the privileged classes, while the great masses of Negro and white children in the isolated regions were given few opportunities for even the most elementary schooling.

The devastation of war left an impoverished South, and as free schools depend upon the generosity of the individual states, many, though desirous, were utterly unable to make suitable school provision for their children.

Sections in the North thus neglected may also be found, as some of the islands on the coast of Maine and other more or less isolated regions of New England, New York, and other states will testify.

There have been great gaps where the government has failed to make adequate educational provision among the Indian tribes. The Spanish-speaking people are also exceptional in their educational needs. Though the government has done much, yet Cuba and Porto Rico are among the places where conditions make necessary special educational effort.

The vast number of non-English-speaking adult foreigners calls for unusual educational provisions.

As the church sent out the school in the early days to become one of its greatest contributors to our national life, so ever since, the church has earnestly sought to supply the neglected with that knowledge which is power.

It is increasingly the aim of the schools founded and maintained by Home Missions to lead to self-realization and self-help, to bring the Christ motive to the inner life, and efficiency and effectiveness to the mastery of outward circumstances through the training of minds and hands.

Among the early Home Mission schools, were those opened to give guidance and direction to the millions of Negroes in their baffling struggle upward from bondage to all that freedom means of ability toward self-direction and development.

"At Kent Home for Negro girls at Greensboro, North Carolina, the schedule of the day's activities shows the scope of such schools.

* * * * *

"The day's work begins early, breakfast being at 6:30. Busy hands have the house in perfect order, and advance preparations made for dinner by the time the chapel bell rings at 8:30.

"All the work of the Home is done by the girls under the supervision and with the practical assistance of teachers. They are marked and graded in this as in their school work. They are also making creditable progress in general cooking, plain sewing and dressmaking.

"The students in the college range in age from sixteen to sixty years. One of the latter took eleven years to graduate, keeping two girls in school and a large family at home at the same time.

"The taste for reading must needs be cultivated in most of the girls who enter our Homes. The gift of $100 from a former 'Kent girl' and her husband, provides the nucleus of a library made up of such books as girls need and enjoy; better still, it is reaching more than our girls. Neither college nor village has library opportunities for colored people, and so the supply at Kent Home was made available to those outside." [Footnote: Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.]

* * * * *

"It was a Negro girl from Boylan Home, Jacksonville, Florida, who went back to her cabin home to find no floor but the earth, and nothing to sit on but home-made stools. But she had the equipment for producing better things, and was soon conducting quite a dressmaking business for the neighborhood.

"A frequent sign of progress is the request of a girl to buy a broom to take home to her mother. Neither mother nor girl had known in the past anything better than a bundle of twigs wherewith to sweep the rough wooden or earth floor of the cabin."

* * * * *

Spelman Seminary at Atlanta, Georgia, founded (1881) and maintained by the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society, has carried forward a varied and far-reaching service to Negroes.

One student referring to her own experience says--"I thought I was going to Spelman to learn books, but I soon found that sewing, washing and ironing, sweeping and dusting, cooking and all sorts of work are included in getting an education here.

"While carrying on high school work I completed the three years' course in cooking. Plain sewing had been thoroughly mastered. Basketry, practical gardening and agriculture were a part of the grade work. Now while I am completing the course in Normal training I am taking bench work, more advanced agriculture and care and raising of poultry. This knowledge will be needed as I seek to better the home conditions of the pupils in the country schools under my care.

"I have also some knowledge of nursing gained at MacVicar Hospital, which is connected with Spelman and which gives full nurse training courses to some eighteen or twenty students each year."

One of the most telling features of Spelman's community service is the sending out of a county supervisor of public schools to introduce industrial training and better methods of school work.

During the last year of Normal work each student-teacher is sent out to visit the county schools with the supervisor whom Spelman employs for the rural work in Fulton County.

There are eight rural and seven suburban Negro schools in the county. The school buildings range from an old house or a one-room building, with almost nothing to work with, up to a good school building fairly equipped.

The following is told by one of the Normal students of her work in the country schools:

"Mothers' clubs were formed and fathers were interested so far as possible in order to secure the sympathy and co-operation of the parents in introducing industrial work.

"The tools were crude. In many instances jack-knives, stones and glass were used if hammers, planes and saws could not be obtained.

"Sewing was taught to both boys and girls. At first the boys objected, but such remarks as 'Can't she see us is boys?' failed of results, and soon the boys became thoroughly interested in making good sized boys' handkerchiefs from flour sacks. Baskets were made from pine needles, reed, willow, and rushes, and mats from corn shucks.

"Early in the term the untidy, neglectful school yards were converted into gardens, farmers supplying the seed, and when no mule could be procured for ploughing, four boys were harnessed to draw the plough, while another guided it.

"Parent-teachers' clubs were organized and many mothers came for instruction."

The fact that the last census reports thirty-three per cent of the Southern Negro population above ten years as illiterate, shows a vast need here of additional educational effort of the kind that Missions are bringing--the all-round training that gives ability to earn a living, combined with the moral and spiritual qualities which alone can produce worthy citizenship.

* * * * *

In Porto Rico and the island possessions of the United States, Mission schools have rendered the greatest possible service.

There were almost no schools for the plain people on the islands under Spanish rule. Our government, when it assumed control, addressed itself vigorously to the task of providing schools as well as giving the islands wholesome physical conditions, but there was great need of supplemental Mission schools, especially for the younger children.

In addition to the lack of sufficient public schools, there are reasons involved in the former religious control of the islands which make the Mission school most essential in bringing to the citizens of to-morrow quickening ideals and constructive training.

"Mercedes, Juanita, Pachita, Juan, Felipe--here they are, all out at play, just like American school children at recess, only that it is too hot for hard running games. Where is the schoolhouse? Why, under that cocoanut tree. Yes, that little shack, thatched with palm leaves. See the American flag floating atop it! That tells the story. If the breeze that waves it could speak to you as it does to some older people, it would say, 'In all this beautiful island outside the city of San Juan, there was but one schoolhouse when it came into the possession of the United States. Spain had kept the men and women in ignorance for more than four hundred, years. Every bright fold of Old Glory means new life, new joy, new hope to the boys and girls of Porto Rico, for now they have a chance.'"

* * * * *

The concentration of Orientals on the Pacific coast has laid a heavy responsibility upon Home Missions to interpret to them the message of Christ and the meaning of true citizenship in the Republic.

A number of the larger denominations have responded effectively to this call, and their schools and missions extend from the Golden Gate north to Seattle and south to San Diego.

Homes for girls, with kindergarten and primary schools, and evening classes for young men are most important and telling features in this service.

The story of one girl in the Home maintained in San Francisco by the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church is typical of the far-reaching character of all missionary service to Orientals.

* * * * *

Miss Caroline Lee, a remarkable student, was graduated from the State Normal School of California. She is at present (January, 1915) attending the Training School of the Young Women's Christian Association in New York City, preparing to fill an important position in China under the National Board of the Association.

Her child life was filled with tragedy and hardship. Her earliest memories are of a river boat in China and of being sold and brought to San Francisco, and sold again.

Here, suffering from the result of a serious fall, she was found by a missionary and taken to the Mission Home, where she spent five months in the hospital.

In the helpful atmosphere of the Home, she developed a remarkably bright mind and a sweet Christian spirit.

Having completed her school course, she became an efficient worker among her own people, reaching heathen as well as Christian homes through the children in her kindergarten classes, who were devotedly attached to her.

The qualities of her character and service brought her an opening to a position of great importance in Christian work in China. As she returns to China, she becomes another of the many links in the far reaches of Home Missions by which it influences the ends of the earth.

* * * * *

Home Missions probably faces no greater challenge than is presented to its faith and accomplishment by Mormonism.

Through constant recruits of hardy, industrious, but uneducated immigrants, the growth of Mormonism is rapid and of immense political significance.

The Mormon church, with its great foresight, has established strong colonies in many states. In at least eight the influence of the church in civic affairs is paramount.

Because of the fundamental principle of religious tolerance in this country, and the insidious methods of Mormonism, it is most difficult for Christianity successfully to combat this menace. It is acknowledged by those whose experience in Utah and other Mormon states gives them authority, that Christian education of the Mormon young people is the surest and best method of bringing enlightenment, independence of thought, and release from church dominance.

Mormons realize the value of early instruction in religion. Forty thousand children are under regular instruction in Mormon religion classes held in the public schools at least once a week, immediately following the day-school sessions. The regular school teachers (if Mormons) instruct these classes.

"I recently made a circuit of two score towns in eastern and southern Idaho (Mormon territory) in quest of students. It was a strenuous piece of work and required traveling by rail, on horseback and foot.

"Perhaps the most fruitful work of the summer consisted in personal, intimate talks with the younger professional and business men. They do most certainly betray dissatisfaction with the old order. A few are diligently working to liberalize their church against the inertia of the membership and the alert opposition of the crafty leaders. One of these _leaders_ I recently heard openly disparaging education as 'not quick with the Spirit,' and deploring the tendency to question the authority and validity of the priesthood. By far the larger number of younger dissatisfied men are leaving religion out of their accounts, living for personal gain, and when pressed, avowing hostility to all religion.

"The need of cultural advantages is most apparent throughout rural Utah. The work, therefore, of our academies not only fills a great need educationally, but responds effectively to the appeal for good home environment. Christian education is the leaven that Utah needs.

"The graduating classes of the New Jersey Academy for the past three years have all become Christian girls and members of the little Presbyterian church.

"I am confident that a new era is dawning--an era marked by intellectual development and religious awakening, an era of questioning, an era of intelligence. This cannot fail to be effective in breaking up the crust of dogmatism and superstition which has retarded the independent religious thinking of these people for many years." [Footnote: Rev. Mr. Wittenberger--Presbyterian.]

Probably nowhere in our country is there greater eagerness for "book learning" than among the mountain people of the South. The passionately desired schooling in the mountains is often secured only at the expense of great hardship. Booker Washington has said that the measure of attainment is not the result accomplished, but the obstacles overcome in attaining it.

There is much illiteracy among the older people, but through the Mission schools and the improved educational system of the states, comparatively few children now are lacking the opportunity of some elementary education. The training received in the district school is often very meager and the term of a few months' work much too short.

Through the many months when the schools are closed, the young people are thrown upon their own resources. They are without stimulating and helpful outside interests, and deterioration is the inevitable result.

It is interesting to note that in September, 1914, the Kentucky state legislature appointed a Commission on Illiteracy. The Commission has launched an educational campaign with the watch-word "Illiteracy eliminated in 1920."

A number of Southern states have recently made earnest efforts to reduce the percentage of illiteracy within their borders.

The story of what was accomplished in a campaign for the elimination of illiteracy in Rowan County, one of the most backward mountain counties in Kentucky, is both picturesque and instructive.

During the fall months of 1911, 1912, 1913, under the enthusiastic leadership of the County Superintendent and a corps of fifty volunteer and unpaid teachers, practically every man, woman and child in the county was taught to read and write. A special feature of this campaign was the holding of moonlight schools, making possible the attendance of the older people.

Almost all of the fifty teachers who gave this splendid service were graduates of a Mission School, the Morehead Normal School, which is under the administration of the Christian Women's Board of Missions.

Helpful and commendable as such methods are, they cannot supply the place of a Mission School giving regular educational and industrial training. These are qualified to bring to peculiarly backward communities some grasp of the larger, fuller life, and equipment for living it.

* * * * *

"The Mission teacher was making her way along the mountain trail toward a log house. As she drew near, a woman, scarcely more than a child, came to the door, looking eagerly up the creek. A tiny two-year-old boy tried in vain to pass her that he might play in the shallow water of the creek.

"A wailing cry reached the teacher's ears as the mother turned into the room and in a moment was again standing in the doorway, this time holding in her arms a smaller bit of humanity.

"As the teacher reached the house she paused, for a man was riding down the creek. At sight of him the face of the mountain woman in the doorway assumed a stolid, almost hard, look, as if life had already brought to her all the misery and trouble it could, and there was nothing now but indifference.

"The man rode to the door saying, 'Hullo, Ocie.'

"'Howdy, Alf,' was the reply.

"He swung round sidewise on the horse and remarked:

"'They had a fight up to Lef' Fork las' night. Boys been a drinkin'. Jim, he's dead. Andy's not hurt much. They hev taken him to the Cou't House.'

"That was all. The child-woman's expression scarcely changed. The man sat his horse quietly, then with the words, 'Yo pa'll be down some time this mawnin' afte' ye,' he turned and rode up the creek.

"The teacher crossed the foot log, lifted the fretting child into her arms and drew the mother after her into the house. The room was without light, excepting from the open door; the bare, rough-hewn floor and table were spotless. One chair, a bench and an old chest of drawers was the only furniture besides the large bed with its neat, homespun blue counterpane. The hearth of the huge fireplace was swept clean, and although the middle of May, a good fire was burning. The teacher, sitting on the bench behind the table, let the little boy play with her watch, her purse, her rings, until in a wealth of happiness and satisfaction, he fell asleep in her arms. The girl-wife shifted the sleeping babe in her arms, raised her head, and with all the pathos of a hurt and ignorant child spoke her heart to the woman whom she knew would understand.

"'I've fearn this thing for a long time. Las' winter befo' the baby come, I used to set befo' the fire all night long, dreadin', dreadin'--I didn't know what--this, I guess. We've been married nigh onto fou' years now, though I ain't but seventeen; Andy he's comin' nineteen. It's agen the law to marry that young, but pa he hed a big family and Andy, he was a mighty nice young man, so we fixed it all right.

"'We never hed no preachin' fo' more'n three year befo' yo' all come, exceptin' when Mis' Lawson's baby died and when Ben and Lizy was married, ole Brother Bonat come over an' preached a couple o' nights. Fo' more'n year now Andy an' Jim ha' been hangin' roun' Eskin's store, an' you've never know'd 'em exceptin' as the rough men they are. When yo' all come I tho't maybe yo' could get 'em back, but it was too late. Now Jim, he's dead, and Andy--cou'se he never'd tetched Jim if he'd been hisself.'

"The soft, hopeless drawl stopped, and again there was silence. Soon the sleeping children roused, the dog barked, and three men came to the doorway--the father and brothers. Without greeting, the old man said: 'Yo'd better come home, Ocie. Jim, he's dead, an' Andy'll hev to go to Moundsville, I reckon.' (Moundsville meant the state penitentiary.) The teacher helped to dismantle the poor little home and saw the few household belongings loaded on the ox sled.

"The silence which she knew was more acceptable sympathy to the tearless child-woman than words would have been, was only broken when they were standing on the steps above the creek. Then the words were interrupted by the child-mother.

"'It's too late to help this now, but ef yo' all will just see that there's a school here where my children can learn what their pa an' me an' Jim didn't know, an' will keep the meetin's agoin' at the schoolhouse so they'll know how to be good, I'll be mighty glad. These here little fellers named Jim an' Andy, too, yo' know, an' I want 'em to hev more of a chanct than we've hed. They's lots of us up here thet hed in us a great big feelin' of wantin' to be somethin' and to do some-thin' that we didn't know what nor how, 'n' I guess we get reckless sometimes thinkin' it's no use.'" [Footnote: Alma C. Moore--Christian Women's Board of Missions.]

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The detailed and comprehensive report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, issued in January, 1915, emphasized the desirability of the attendance of Indian children at near-by public schools, to obviate the dreaded separation from parents which is entailed when they must be sent by the government to distant Indian boarding schools.

The report mentions the gratifying increase last year in the number of Indian children in attendance at the neighborhood public schools.

Some tribes are still peculiarly neglected educationally. The Navajos are a conspicuous example.

Twenty-four thousand Indian children remain without schools.

The religious motive enters deeply into the psychology of the Indian, and no greater stimulus toward better living can be given them than Christianity affords. Therefore the Mission School is especially adopted to bring the Indians into helpful and constructive relationships as individuals and citizens.

Of great significance in the uplift of the Indians is the recent opening of several schools for training young Christian Indians for leadership in Christian work among their own people.

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"The transition which is now going on from the old days of hunting and fishing to the new period of commercial development throughout all Southeastern Alaska must have a profound effect upon the future of this people.

"More pupils applied for admission to the Sheldon Jackson School at Sitka this year than could possibly be accommodated. The industrial departments of this institution have received careful attention. The general claim of all this work is to give full practical and theoretical training, with a view to preparing the girls for the task of home-making and the boys as wage earners." [Footnote: Woman's Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.]

This aim holds true also for the schools of all Protestant Missions in the far North.

Education is one of the expressions of the passionate desire and purpose for betterment of those who gave their impress to our national life. Hamilton Mabie says: "Among Americans education is not only a discipline, a training; it is also a symbol. It means living an ampler life in a larger world."

The church-Home Missions--from the beginning has been the largest factor in the spread of schools and colleges--the greatest single educative force of this country.

The record of the Home Mission activities of the various denominations tells the story of the founding of academies and colleges, throughout the length and breadth of the land. In Kansas the State Normal School, State Agricultural College and the State University were founded by Home Missionaries.

Of the great Eastern universities and colleges it will be recalled that many were established by the Christian church. Among these are Harvard, Williams, Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Vassar and many others.

Home Missions is still an active and deeply needed educative force. It brings the most powerful influence to the great groups of the neglected in our land, giving them visions of bettered physical conditions, yearnings after higher spiritual purposes, and determinations for a fuller realization of life in all its meaning, with the power of attaining these ideals.

IV

A HEALING FORCE

"During the spring months an epidemic of diphtheria and other infectious diseases visited a district of nine or ten villages in New Mexico. Many children succumbed to these diseases, the number of those who died being about one-tenth of the entire population of the district.

"No people in the world are kinder-hearted than the Mexican people. Everybody, even the children, visits the sick, and attends the _velorios_ (wakes) and funeral rites of the dead, without regard to the contagious character of the disease.

"This fatal custom is re-enforced by a fatalistic philosophy. Whatever befalls one, he receives it with an '_Asi me toco_' (It was my fate). Whatever comes, he says:

"'_Es par Dios_' (It is of God). Each man has his appointed time to die. Until that time he is safe, and when that time comes nothing can save him. There is no such thing as contagion; disease strikes when and where God will. Medicine will cure, if it is the will of God. What the medicine may be is of little importance; a glass of water will cure as well as anything else, is a frequent saying, if it is the will of God.

"She, the missionary nurse, thereupon took up her station in the sick room, kept out the numerous callers, administered antitoxin, and nursed the child back to life. She had saved the child. She gave the antitoxin treatment in other cases where the parents were willing. She thus treated fifteen cases, losing only one."

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"The healing of the seamless dress,
Is by our beds of pain.
We touch Him in life's throng and press,
And we are whole again."

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Of all the compelling qualities that drew humanity irresistibly to Him, the compassion of the Christ was the most winning. This constraining love was the very heart of His Gospel.

The masses of the suffering in His day knew only the ostracism of society because of their affliction.

The blind must sit idly through the glory of the day by the dusty road-side, begging bread from the passing throng; the crippled lay in their misery and impotence at the gateways of the temples, sustained by the occasional coins tossed by the more fortunate as they hurried by. Nervous and mental sufferers must range through the wilds of deserts and waste places, or share the tombs where the lepers took refuge, being judged possessed of devils and fit only to be outcasts.

The pity of Christ, as well as His power to heal, disclosed a new force in the world-a love that could tenderly share the darkened outlook as well as minister to all the needs of such as these.

The compassion of the Christ reached and lifted the hopeless heart of suffering humanity as His touch soothed the torturing agony of disease and brought hope and healing into a world hardened to pain.

It released a power the beneficence and helpfulness of which increase year by year as science adds to its ability, and a growing sense of responsibility widens its use.

The Christian era ushered in the day of hope for the sick-poor--a day that has progressed steadily, to an ever-enlarging vision of what was in the heart of Christ for the healing of the nations.

Ancient writers tell us of some efforts in pre-Christian days toward the institutional care of the sick. The earliest records mention the treatment of the sick in the Greek temples of Aesculapius in 1134 B.C.; these were probably not for the poor. Seneca very much later refers to the infirmaries established by the Romans for the well-to-do classes.

In 226 B.C., the Buddhists in India are credited with some small efforts to provide for the sick poor, as are also later the fire worshipers of Persia.

"When the example and teachings of Christ began to bear fruit, and when Jerusalem and the roads approaching it began to be crowded with pilgrims, special accommodations for the use of the sick were established. When monasteries and convents followed, they too, provided for the sick."

From the Roman word "hospitalia" (apartment set apart for guests), our word hospital is derived.

In the writings of St. Jerome, who established several, the word "hospital" is first used for a curative institution.

It is of interest to know that the oldest hospital now in use in Europe, the Hotel Dieu, was founded in Paris, in 600 A. D. by the Bishop of Paris.

All the early hospitals were church institutions, and the wards were clustered about the chapel, as may be seen to-day in the arrangement of beautiful St. Luke's hospital in New York City. Thus we find that religion, not medicine, gave birth to hospitals.

An accelerating influence in their growth came through the necessities of war, which threw large numbers of the injured and suffering upon communities quite unprepared to receive and minister to them.

It was to meet such a need that the first hospital was established in the United States on Manhattan Island in 1658.

The "New Netherland Register" says "This hospital was established at the request of Surgeon Hendricksen Varrevauger for the reception of sick soldiers--who had been previously billeted on private families."

In 1679 the hospital consisted of five houses.

Early in the eighteenth century pest-houses were established at Salem, Massachusetts, at New York, and Charleston, and in 1717, a hospital for contagious diseases was built in Boston.

The teachings and writings of Benjamin Franklin were of marked importance in promoting sanitary science and in securing the building of the first chartered hospital in the United States, which was erected in Philadelphia in 1755. The record shows four hundred and thirty-five patients treated in this hospital in the year 1775.

That year was also marked by the building of the New York Hospital, which was destroyed by fire almost as soon as completed, and rebuilt in 1791. It owed its origin to two professors of King's College (now Columbia), which at that time was a church institution.

The necessities of war have from early times had a marked effect upon the development of hospitals. Dr. James Tilton, in presenting recommendations to Congress in 1781, says of his experience in the Revolution: "It would be shocking to humanity to relate the history of our general hospitals in the years 1777 and 1779, when they swallowed up at least one-half of our army, owing to the system of placing nearly all the sick of the army in the general hospitals, where crowds and infection wrought a fearful mortality, and where more surgeons died in the American service in proportion to their number than officers of the line--a strong evidence that infection is more dangerous than weapons of war."

The death rate of the English and French soldiers was so fearful, and the neglect and condition of the wounded men so appalling in the Crimean war (1854), that the entire English nation was aroused. It was a woman, Florence Nightingale, who was sent out by the nation and given full authority to act in the emergency upon which hung the fate of the armies.

Not only did this noble woman, with her band of thirty-seven nurses, bring healing instead of death in those army hospitals, but she instituted reform in sanitation which was adopted by hospitals throughout the world.

To her also humanity owes the inestimable boon of the trained nurse of education, refinement and ability. Before Florence Nightingale gave herself and initiated the movement for the training of young women of standing as nurses, such work had been left to the rough, uncouth, and often low-lived men and women, of whom the unspeakable Sairey Gamp, immortalized by Charles Dickens, is a fitting type.

As the Christian church was the first to give healing to the needy, so it has carried this ministry wherever in the world its banners have been set up.

Throughout this land, from Alaska to the Gulf, may be found hospitals established by the Christian church--the greater number the product of Home Missions.

The Home Mission nurse, or deaconess-nurse, is an important factor in connection with nearly every mission station.

In lumber sections, in mining camps, on Alaskan river boats, in far back mountain settlements, in the patios of Porto Rico and our island possessions, with the Negroes of the South, the Orientals of the Pacific coast, the backward peoples, the Mexicans and Indians, the depressed of our great cities, at the gates of the nation--wherever the cry of human need in our land has been met by Home Missions, there these ministers of healing have carried their blessed service.

If the nurse, or deaconess, is to fulfill her mission to the sick, she must have training. There must be deaconess homes and hospital's for this, where also the sick poor who can rarely be properly cared for in their dark, crowded, unsanitary homes may find help. In answer to this double need, deaconess hospitals have been established.

"The deaconess nurse goes into the homes of the poor, bringing the skilled touch of the nurse and the loving heart of Christian womanhood to the service of the neediest. Contagion has no terrors for her; Filth, vermin, and dangerously unsanitary conditions are matters of every-day occurrence. No service so quickly opens the heart to good influences as that which comes in hours of deepest need and helplessness, to lead the heart through human tenderness to the Source of all goodness and love. Whole families have been won to Christ through the services of a Christian nurse.

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