Home Missions in Action Part 6

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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.ses, while the great ma.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sistance 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sumed 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 cla.s.ses for young men are most important and telling features in this service.

The story of one girl in the Home maintained in San Francis...o...b.. 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 a.s.sociation in New York City, preparing to fill an important position in China under the National Board of the a.s.sociation.

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.