Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889», страница 7

Various

Шрифт:

GLIMPSES FROM THE FIELD

SCHOOL LIFE

I think you could not find a busier company of young people anywhere. As soon as one task is accomplished, another is ready to be taken up, and this goes on from early morn till time for retiring. Going into the kitchen you will find a dozen or more girls, with bright and happy faces, doing the homely work of dish-washing and preparing the vegetables for dinner. In the laundry, you are greeted with as many more smiling faces, some singing, others telling funny stories, but all busy at their allotted work. The bell rings for school and you will see them flying from every direction, perhaps having taken a moment to smooth the hair, or arrange the dress. All out of breath they reach the school room, ready for the five hours' work with books, which is the same as any average school in the North. This work being accomplished, they are off to the farm, shops, the sewing room and the cooking class. Here they learn to prepare all substantial food which would be necessary for any table, and become initiated into the intricacies of bread, pie and cake-making.

Our Sabbaths are not idle days either, for with Sunday-school, church service, and prayer meetings, our day is pretty well filled. Some of our girls are doing real missionary work by going out into the neighborhood, to relieve the sick, read to the old and infirm, and to carry food where it is needed. This they seem to enjoy, and it will, perhaps, prepare them for usefulness as they go out to work among their people.

HOME LIFE

Perhaps, if I give you a glimpse into the home of one of our pupils, you can more easily understand what we have to work against among these people. In a miserable old hovel, of one small room, lives a family of eleven, father, mother, five children, two pitiful little orphans, to whom the mother out of the kindness of her heart has given shelter, and a young man and a young woman as boarders. The mother toils hard each day to furnish bread for the little ones, and does what she can to keep her family respectable. The father is what is termed, "no 'count." He has no regular employment, but, when so inclined, will chop wood, and thus earn a few dimes. Their house is lighted by one small window, in which bunches of rags and papers supply the absence of glass. The room is heated by an old fire-place, which is crumbling to decay. The furniture consists of two straw beds covered with ragged quilts, a little pine table, and four broken chairs. I need not tell you of the moral atmosphere which exists in such a home. Yet this is only a type of the home we see too often when we are making our round of calls.

SACRIFICES FOR EDUCATION

Our school refuses none on account of age. Pupils are there, from the little three-year-old who attends the "Kinny-garten," as they call it, to those who are forty and fifty years old. I have been exceedingly interested in one woman who is now attending school in the primary room. She said to me: "I done sent my daughters through school and now I thought I would try and get a little education myself."

One of the good brothers well expressed this idea of sacrifice on the part of the parents for the education of their children when he said, "I only wants to be a stepping-stone for my children. If I can help them to rise higher than I have got, that is all I ask."

One poor woman told me she spent less than a dollar per week for provisions for a family of eight persons in order to save money to keep her children in school.

The oldest pupil in my school, a man over thirty years of age, said to me one day, "I wish I could have gone to school when I was young, for as a fellow grows older, his remembrance comes shorter."

OUR YOUNG FOLKS

Two little girls, about eight and nine years old, have just been to my room. The older one said, "This yere chile wants a dress to wear to Sunday-school to-morrow, and her ma says if it don't fit she can cut it off and make it over." I found among the contents of the last barrel a pretty blue gingham that fitted. I am sure the one who sent the dress would have felt happy if she could have seen the glad look of the child as she received it. I found the older little girl was not attending any day-school, and when I asked her what she did to help at home, she replied, "I don't do nothing, but stay at home and tote wood and notice the house."

The children may be interested in a question asked by a little girl in the third grade. She said, "My pa wants I should ask you whether the children of Israel, that Moses led out of Egypt, were black people, or white people?"

I have been teaching nearly six weeks. The house is a cheap frame one with a fire-place at one end. It is supplied with five benches, two desks and a blackboard. On those small benches twenty-five or more children must be seated. It is hard to keep them busy, as very few have the books which they need. Many are just learning to read, and some of these are making excellent progress.

At first it seemed as though the scholars would fight on the least provocation. If there had not been a few who had attended another of our schools, I do not know what I should have done, but those few did not fight. Their deportment in the school-room was also good. Now there is scarcely any fighting. At first several brought tobacco to school, but it was not allowed to be used, and so is not brought now.

One day a girl was at the board doing a simple sum in addition, three plus four; she put down nine as the entire sum. When I asked her what three plus four was equal to, she said "seven." I then asked her why she did not put that down; she said, "Dunno how to make a seben and so 'lowed dat would do." One young man has come to school but four half days, yet he has learned to write his own name legibly and can read some. He could spell "right smart" before he came.