Chapter 4

2. _Wood-working_, of which the principal branch is carpentry--turning and carving occupying a minor place. This has an advantage over agriculture, and also over the other trades, in the greater ease with which it may be made a matter of class instruction. Much can be accomplished in teaching the use and care of tools without entering at all upon processes of manufacture. Thus, classes numbering as high as twenty or twenty-five were taught during the past year at Atlanta University. Classes are also under instruction at Talladega College, Tougaloo University, and Lewis Institute (Macon). Repairs and additions to the various buildings of the several institutions furnish opportunity for practical application of the instruction given at the benches of the class-room; and in the course of time some lines of manufacture may also be found practicable, varying in kind with the locality. Along with wood-working, instruction in glazing would seem to be feasible, and even in that most useful art, soldering.

3. _Blacksmithing._--There are many good blacksmiths among the older colored men; and there is no reason, except lack of opportunity for learning, why there should not be more among the rising generation. In school shops it is possible to teach this trade successfully to classes. One teacher can instruct from six to ten pupils at as many forges, but the expense is greater than in teaching the use of wood-working tools. There is an inevitable consumption of coal and of metal--a serious loss unless some market can be found for simple articles of handiwork. Instruction in this branch is quite limited, though something is being done at Tougaloo, and more at the Santee Indian school.

Wheelwrighting is fast becoming an obsolete art in the North. The great factories have pushed the hand-made wagon out of the market. In the South, however, there is still much need of capable wheelwrights for the extensive repairs necessitated by the horrible roads--or rather lack of roads.

4. _Tinning._--This is also limited in its possibilities. A market is necessary for the disposal of products. Even a few pupils under a competent instructor can turn off an inconvenient amount of tin-ware, if storage proves to be its fate rather than sale; and schools are always at a disadvantage in the market. A fair beginning has been made in this branch at Tougaloo University.

5. _Printing._--If I were to name yet another branch of handiwork which it is possible to carry on as an educational accessory, it would be "the art preservative." The experience of A. M. A. institutions in sundry attempts hitherto is not at all of an encouraging sort; but this is very likely because they were not managed as educational agencies, under careful and skillful supervision. A start under the new method is being made at Fisk University, with many points in favor of its success.

The reader is perhaps surprised that I have not named _shoe-making_ as one of the practicable branches, since it has so often been incorporated into the industrial organization of various reformatory institutions; but it no longer seems a feasible undertaking for an industrial school of the modern type. The shoe-maker's occupation is gone, except as he becomes a part of the mechanism of a great factory, not making _shoes_, but confining himself to the simplest elements of a shoe, cutting uppers or scraping soles. Moreover, there is such competition and such depression in the shoe business as make this trade too unprofitable for prosecution in connection with school work.

6. _Drawing._--So far, I have been considering only manual training for boys. But there is one branch of a true industrial training which knows no sex. It is suitable and, when rightly considered, essential for boys and girls alike. While visiting the St. Louis Manual Training School two years ago, I said to Prof. Woodward, "What can we of the missionary schools, with our financial limitations, do best in this line of manual training?" He answered, "There is one thing that you can do in any school: it costs little, needs no special appliances or plant, and is the fundamental part of any industrial training, _drawing_." And he was right so far as the utility of the study is concerned. Drawing, not as a matter of picture-making, but as a means of systematic training for eye and hand, a training to accuracy and method, and as a vital help toward foremanship in any trade, ought everywhere to be held as a necessary element of industrial education. Some beginning in industrial drawing has been made in all our institutions. But, in a work like ours, the lack of special preparation on the part of most teachers, their insufficient appreciation of and faith in the study, and the lack of close direct supervision, are serious hindrances to complete success.

The range of industrial work for girls is less wide than that for boys, and lies chiefly in the zone of home making and keeping.

1. _Sewing_ is the first subject of instruction. The generation of women who came out of slavery knew nothing, and still know nothing, of needle-work. And so in all our schools, even the day schools, classes in plain sewing have long found a place; though of late the work has been taken up more systematically, all the girls of certain grades being held to the sewing classes as strictly as to reading or writing. After plain sewing comes the cutting and making of garments, the various forms of seductive "fancy work" being almost wholly ignored.

In our exhibit at the Madison meeting of the National Educational Association last summer were numbers of aprons, dresses, shirts, etc., made by pupils, often of the primary grades; and one of the most noticed specimens was a neatly darned stocking. Even darning must be taught to these girls in school; there is no instructor at home.

2. _Cooking_ is much more widely understood by the colored mothers. Indeed, there is a sort of illusory tradition abroad that the negroes are a race of cooks; though, according to my observation, nothing could be farther from the truth. And cooking is only one part of _domestic economy_. Of this art as a whole, the colored women are densely ignorant. They know nothing of orderly housekeeping, of marketing, or of economy in any true sense of the word.

In several of our schools--notably Le Moyne Institute at Memphis--instruction in domestic economy, including cooking, is now well systematized as a part of the course of study for girls. At Atlanta University, a class of young women each year is inducted into a full and careful knowledge of good housekeeping by what is called the cottage plan, the girls doing their own housekeeping through the year under the training of a cultivated house-mother.

Nor should it be forgotten that in every boarding school of the A. M. A. the regular ongoing of the domestic work of the institution, nearly all of which except the cooking and washing is done by the students, furnishes no insignificant or ineffectual training in the art of housekeeping.

8. _Nursing_ and the general care of the sick is also a branch in which instruction and training are sadly needed by the colored women. Few things are more pitiful than the condition of the sick among any half-civilized people, with their caprices, their superstitions and their irregularities. In this direction, Fisk University takes a prominent place among our institutions, employing a professionally trained woman who gives her whole time to the hygiene of the school and the training of the students in health-preserving and health-restoring.

It would have been easy to double the length of this article by going more into details with respect to the industrial features in process of incorporation into the work of all our leading institutions, and their industrial influence, the "unconscious tuition" of industry which they have come more and more to exert. Suffice it to add, without hyperbole, that it is easy to _track_ these missionary schools, to trace their influence by their results upon the home life and domestic ambitions of the young people who have gone out from them to the work of the world. And this influence is yet in its beginnings.

* * * * *

THE CHINESE.

* * * * *

THE OUTLOOK.

REV. W. C. POND.

With the beginning of a new fiscal year there came to me a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the present status of our work--a sadness which almost touched the borders of discouragement at the decrease in attendance on our schools, and the lack of eager outreaching and aggressive endeavor on the part of us all--Superintendent, Teachers and Chinese helpers,--all alike. The methods, which had been so strikingly efficient in years past, seemed to be failing us now. We were settled down into them, as ruts; and, no matter how slow or hard or fruitless our movements along the old line, it seemed impossible to see what else to do, or how we could strike out into new paths, or plan any material change in the ordering of our campaign.

Sometimes the question would arise; Is our work done? Has the Restriction Act, which for the present diminishes so greatly the incoming of fresh recruits for our schools, rung the knell of our missionary success? But to this question only one answer was possible. Even if, looking out from a stand-point of consummate Calvinism, we should venture to decide that the Lord's elect among the Chinese in California had all been gathered in, there were, nevertheless, these little flocks of Christ's own sheep and lambs already gathered that must not be left without a shepherd's care. Surely there is a duty that we owe to these, and to leave them untended in this wilderness would be to count ourselves in among the goats on the left hand of the Judge.

But no Calvinism of any sort--and certainly not of our sort--gives us any basis for such an unchristian decision. We cannot shelter behind it, and think to retire with honor when we have as yet only skirmished on the edges of the field. For the Chinese heathenism of California remains to-day, so far as we can see, substantially a solid mass, without any fissure, though not without a scar. Many chips have been struck off from it, and for these we bless God; but the rock-like hardness of the Chinese heart remains substantially unbroken. Say that all our missions have reached, in the aggregate, 5,000 of these souls--there remain 65,000 virtually untouched. Suppose that we could count 1,000 born of God in all the missions (and this would be a large estimate) there remain 69,000 that are still aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without God and without hope in the world. To penetrate, somehow, this Chinese wall of prejudice, conceit and superstition, and pierce, with the sword of the spirit, the hearts intrenched behind it--to reach, somehow, the myriads not reached, and to bring them forth from the darkness that they love into the saving light that now they hate--this was the problem. You can look at it. I _have_ looked at it--till the sense of helplessness and uselessness threw me down upon my knees with my heart next door to despair. But there the still small voice was heard again, the voice of an _infinite_ Saviour saying, "Be not afraid, only believe." "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say even to _this_ mountain, Remove hence, and it _shall remove_."

But with fresh courage, born of faith, came a conviction that some change of method,--not as abandoning by any means our schools, but as introducing new methods, breaking in upon an old and worn routine, was indispensable. What it should be I could not tell. One could conceive of several plans of operation, which would be beyond our reach for lack of means, but to find the work and then the workers, and still keep inside the line of safe expenditure--this called for a wisdom which could come to _me_, at any rate, only from above. We have been seeking this guidance. I say, "we," for I believe that teachers and helpers have prayed with me for it. We expect it to come. We venture to hope that we see it coming.

One token is the opening of new fields, especially at San Diego and Tulare--experiments yet, but hopeful ones. Another token is that in one, at least, of our helpers evangelistic power seems to appear. Not without anxiety did I see him brought within the fascination of the "Holiness Band" and the "Salvation Army," and my fears were not groundless, as some minor symptoms in his spiritual life clearly disclosed. But I believe that his Master and ours knew what was going on and will bring him forth out of it all, unscathed and better fitted for high service than he has ever been hitherto. At present he is in Oroville. After being there less than a week he wrote, "God has given me three souls--one of them at the meeting last night." And later, Rev. Joseph Adams, pastor of our church there, wrote as follows: "There is a very blessed work going on among the Chinese here. After conference with Wong Ock I invited him to bring to my house all the boys he thought were Christians. I fixed an evening about ten days ago, and invited my church clerk and Dr. Read to be present. Wong Ock came with eight boys. We were occupied with them until nearly midnight. It was one of the most blessed meetings I have had in this county. I examined them, through Wong Ock, as interpreter, in relation to their conversion, how it was brought about, and what was their present experience. Two professed to find peace with God during the meeting. Their child-like faith and ready acceptance of the statements and promises of the gospel were simply delightful. Considering their former training, and the small advantages of Christian knowledge, it was truly wonderful. My brethren agreed with me, that beyond all dispute they exhibited a glorious work of the spirit of God."

A third token of approaching answers to our prayer I see in the coming among us of Rev. D. D. Jones, who has been connected with our South China Mission, under Rev. C. R. Hager of Hong Kong. The French war has so disturbed the people among whom he was laboring, and, for the present, so closed the doors to missionary service, that he has seized the opportunity for a visit to us. He is well fitted for street preaching, and seems to have the evangelistic spirit. By way of experiment I have asked him to labor with us in this city for a month or two--hoping, if the Lord accepts our endeavor, to have him visit Sacramento, Marysville and other points. The beginnings of his work are encouraging, and we venture to hope that fruit already appears. We ask the readers of the _Missionary_ to add their requests to ours, that these tokens may be what the cloud was, big as a man's hand--precursor of glad out-pourings such as those in which Elijah left the mount of conflict and of prayer.

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CHILDREN'S PAGE.

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LETTER FROM AN INDIAN BOY.

The letter given below was written by a Sioux Indian boy, whose entire education has been gained in the three years he has now been at Hampton Institute. It was written in acknowledgment of a Christmas gift of ten dollars for the purchase of books for himself, sent by a Sabbath-school class of boys in New York city.

HAMPTON, Va. Dec. 18th, 1884.

DEAR FRIENDS: It is impossible for me to write a few lines. I am glad that I will try to say a few words Of my people. We were just like a little baby. When Columbus discovered America, Until now To-day, we are different from what we were at that time. It is hard for us to leave our own old Indian ways at once. You know how hard it is for a crazy man get better from his crazy. It is just so with the Indians, it is hard for us. When I was at home, I was the youngest, But I try to do my best. So my parents wanted me to be kept there, As long as I could. But some of my friends think it will better for me to get a little education, and them some more to help them. It seem to me come to schools, And now I am school in this institution, and it is hard for me to do right. But I try to do my best as well as possible. And I learn little bits of English language or composition and also some history, Ever since I been here about over three years ago. So I am anxious to tell you something about my people, but as I say I have been here three years, I did not know how they getting along--But I think they are become like as civilized now, As some of them try very hard to do as the white people's. But there are some white men in our agencies, are good but only few of them, And there are most of all bad ones. Those bad ones who are try hard to pull us down. So hoping you will help and pray for us. We may stand against these bad temptation. And finally we shall be risen very slowly, from the lowest to the highest civilization. Some of the white man those who opposed the Indian they said--"The Indians can never be civilized are dead Indian not lives Indians but dead, them are unsuccessful and good for anything." It may be very true. But if some always good people will help us to do right, We shall be civilized as well as any other nation. my friends I wish I could do more, but the language which I am using is rather and difficult for me and keeps me back. Therefore I cannot express of my desire but as I say again We shall not be civilized at once, but we shall in the future. I thank you for money very much.

I am most sincerely an Indian friend.

BENJ. OHITIKA.

The attempt of the writer of the letter to quote the inhuman sentiment so often uttered by bad white men: "There is no good Indian but a dead Indian," illustrates the extreme difficulty an Indian has in acquiring our language. The penmanship of this boy would bear favorable comparison with that of young men of his age as they graduate from our public schools. It is an interesting fact that the Indian under education uniformly excels in penmanship.

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RECEIPTS FOR DECEMBER, 1884.

MAINE, $1,461.02.

Alfred. Cong. Ch. and Soc., 15.25, and Sab. Sch., 10 $25.25 Andover. Mrs. N. J. P. Dame, _for Woman's Work_ 4.00 Augusta. Mrs. Skeeles' S. S. Class, _for Student Aid, Talladega C._ 1.00 Bangor. Central Cong. Ch. and Soc., adl. (6.60 of which _for Indian M._) 54.60 Bangor. Central Ch. Sab. Sch., _for Indian M._ 40.00 Bluehill. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.60 Brewer. M. Hardy, 50, to const. MRS. MARY A. CHAMBERLAIN L.M.; First Cong. Ch. and Soc., 10 60.00 Bridgton. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.20 Brunswick. Hon. A. H. Merrill, to const. REV. JOHN H. HIGGINS, REV. F. W. TOWLE and DEA. S. A. SMITH L.M's 100.00 Falmouth. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc., 3.50; "A Friend," 5 8.50 Farmington Falls. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.00 Foxcroft. Mrs. D. Blanchard 5.00 Gilead. Cong. Ch. 4.01 Hallowell. "Friends," _Freight_ 3.00 Hermon. "F. B. S. S.," by J. M. Taylor 2.00 Limington. "A. B" 2.50 North Anson. "A Friend" 10.00 North Norway. Mrs. M. K. Frost .50 Norridgewock. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 40.00 Portland. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc., ad'l 16.50 Searsport. First Cong. Ch., ad'l 15.00 South Berwick. Dea. I. P. Yeaton, to const, himself and REV. GEO. LEWIS L. M's 100.00 Windham. Rev. L. Wiswall 14.00 Woolwich. Cong. Ch. 14.50 Yarmouth. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 18.01 York. First Cong Ch. and Soc. 33.00 Ladies of Maine, _for Selma, Ala._ Hiram, Ladies, 50; Auburn, Ladies of High St. Ch., 24.25; Lewiston, Ladies of Pine St. Ch., 23.50; Auburn, Ladies of Sixth St. Ch., 1.10; ----, "Friends," 2 100.85 ---------- $701.02

LEGACY.

Castine. Estate of Mrs. Lucy S. Adams, by Rev. Geo. M. Adams, Ex. 760.00 ---------- $1,461.02

NEW HAMPSHIRE, $681.15.

Bennington. Katherine P. Heald $5.00 Bristol. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 2.32 Colebrook. Cong. Ch. and Sab. Sch. 10.00 Concord. First Cong. Ch. and Soc., to const. MRS. ARTHUR G. STEVENS, MRS. ENOCH GERRISH and MRS. JOHN C. THORNE, L.M's 100.00 Concord. Miss Alma J. Herbert 30, to const. herself L.M.; "A Friend" 1 31.00 Dover. Mrs. S. H. Foye and Mrs. A. Fairbanks, _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 10.00 Exeter. "A Friend," 32; Second Cong. Ch., 24; By Miss Mary Gordon (one share), 20; Ladies' Sew. Circle of Second Cong. Ch., _freight_, 3 79.00 Gilmanton. Centre Cong. Ch. 5.00 Hanover. Cong. Sab. Sch., _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 20.00 Harrisville. Cong. Ch. 8.76 Hinsdale. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 12.35 Keene. First Cong. Ch. Sab. Sch. 21.33 Lyme. Cong. Sab. Sch. 10.00 Manchester. First Cong. Ch., 10; Mrs. M. Gilbert, 5.50; "Friends," 55c., _for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 16.05 Marlboro. Ladies' Freedmen Soc. 10.00 Merrimac. First Cong. Ch. 13.70 Milford. First Cong. Ch. to const. MRS. J. J. SAVAGE, MINNIE L. CONVERSE and CHARLES J. WILSON L.M's 106.14 Mount Vernon. J. A. Starrett 5.00 Nashua. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 120.00 Nelson. Cong. Ch. 11.24 Pelham. Cong. Ch. 41.54 Salem. Cong. Ch. 1.50 Stratham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 21.22 Tilton. A. H. Colby 6.00 Walpole. First Cong. Ch. 11.00 Webster. "A Friend" 3.00

VERMONT, $509.55.