Home Missions in Action Part 7

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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses held in the public schools at least once a week, immediately following the day-school sessions. The regular school teachers (if Mormons) instruct these cla.s.ses.

"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 cla.s.ses 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 superst.i.tion which has r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumed 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.]

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.