Now let me send you along with a mission lady to visit a village school, so that you may know a little about the educational work of an African mission. But I am afraid you cannot go to the village so I must let the lady tell of her visit herself. This is what she writes, and had you gone with her you would have seen it all with your own eyes: “‘Our Donna is coming! Our Donna is coming!’ Thus heralded, we approach the village, a flock of small boys, who have come to meet us, dancing along before the machila, shrieking at the pitch of their shrill young voices. “‘Our Donna has come!’ announces that we have reached the village courtyard. There stands the school, a little grass shed, with forms like bird perches; and the teacher, conspicuous by his clean white clothes, and Kungauma, the headman, are waiting there to welcome me. “After a little, a wheezy horn is blown by a stalwart young man, and the scholars begin to assemble. Meantime I pay a visit to the women’s quarters where the older women are busy pounding the maize and sifting the flour. After a few words of friendly greeting, enquires about their work and notice of their babies--for a black mother, as well as a white one, likes to see ‘her bairns respeckit like the lave’--I return to the school. It is full to overflowing. “A hymn is sung and prayers are said by the teacher; then the classes arrange themselves on their respective ‘perches.’ I begin to examine Class 1, while an admiring circle of fond mothers and sympathising friends squats outside. After going conscientiously through the lessons of Class 1, we go on to Class 2, and I hear them their allotted task. “But time is flying! I ask what other classes still remain to be examined. ‘Class 3 and an Infant,’ replies the teacher, indicating their whereabouts. I glance at the dozen or so of eager little faces that compose Class 3 and then look towards the ‘Infant.’ He may be such, legally so-called, but to my astonishment I see the stalwart young man who performed upon the bronchitic horn! It turns out later that he is the most advanced pupil in the school and is reading an English book, called the ‘Infant Reader’; hence his name. “Leaving him and Class 3 for another day, I call the young women and girls to begin sewing. Forty are in my class, and more would like to enter, but I cannot give proper attention to a larger number. One is advanced to enough sew a child’s frock, several are hemming sashes, most of them are at the elementary ‘patch’ stage. As I give out the seams I glance at their hands. Some, conscious of cleanliness and virtue, will voluntarily turn up their little pink palms for my inspection. ‘Mine are clean, Adonna, look at mine!’ while others have to be sent to wash.