Part 9

“I never put up a building without having the funds in hand,” he declared. “But when it comes to work—I believe in beginning first and asking afterwards. The support will somehow come, if there is faith, but faint-heartedness means paralysis of effort.”

One of the most important producers and consumers of all Dr. Grenfell’s institutions is the King George V. Seamen’s Institute at St. John’s. The cornerstone of the four-story brick building was laid in 1911. Sir Ralph Williams (the Governor), Bowring Brothers, Job Brothers, Harvey and Company, MacPherson Brothers and other loyal and forward-looking citizens got behind the plan: and when the stone was swung into place by wire from Buckingham Palace as King George V. pressed the button, the sum of $175,000 was in hand. The site contributed by Bowring Brothers was valued at $13,000.

The enumeration of beds occupied, meals served, baths taken, games played, books loaned, films shown and lectures heard does not begin to tell the story. Fishermen and sailormen ashore are traditionally forlorn. Men from the outports who drift into St. John’s are like country lads who come wide-eyed to a great city. It is not morally so bad for them as it was ere prohibition came and clamped the lid upon the gin-mills. But still, these are lonely men, friendless men, with very little money: and the Institute has a helping hand out for them, to befriend them from the moment they set foot on shore. Moreover, there is a dormitory given over to the use of outport girls: since it is seen that hard as things may be for Jack ashore they are harder yet for sister Jill, who knows even less of the great round world outside the bay and needs even more protection than her brother.

The Institute at last is able to show a small balance on the right side of the ledger. Since the first thought of those who ran it has been service, they are satisfied to come out only a little better than even. No charge of graft or profiteering lies here: and those who are fed and housed and warmed find it “a little bit of heaven” to be made so comfortable at an expense so small.

At the start, less than a decade ago, there were croakers who said there would be but a slim and scattering patronage: but now nearly all the beds are in use every night. In the dread influenza year, 1918, the Institute was invaluable as an Emergency Hospital, which treated 267 patients. The city hospital at St. John’s is small and always overcrowded. If the Institute had not been available the results of the epidemic would have been still more terrible. When in February, 1918, the _Florizel_ was wrecked on the coast between St. John’s and Cape Race the survivors were brought here, and the Institute also prepared the bodies of the dead for burial. And on other occasions it has done good service.

Demobilized men of the Army and Navy coming into town from the outports use the building as a clubhouse.

Since the high cost of living has not spared Newfoundland, the rate for the young women who are permanent boarders has had to be raised to $4.00 a week. In parts of Newfoundland that is a good deal of money, but it is not much compared with what these girls would have to pay in the absence of the Institute.

The successful operation of the Institute is an outstanding object-lesson, and a source of particular satisfaction to its founder and chief promoter. It has triumphantly answered and silenced the objections of those who at the start declared that the only possible result would be calamitous failure. It has survived the shock of the discovery that some of its earlier administrators were unworthy of their charge; it has outlived the era of struggle and set-back; it has so clearly proved its place and its meaning in the community where it is established that if it were destroyed the merchants themselves would be prompt to undertake its replacement. It is as impressive a monument as any to the enduring worth of the devoted labours of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, and as conspicuous a proof as could be offered that his great work by land and sea deserves an Endowment Fund.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. Some illustrations have been moved slightly to keep paragraphs intact.

[End of _With Grenfell on the Labrador_ by Fullerton Waldo]