Prowling about PanamaMiller, George A. (George Amos)
Philosophy
Prowling about Panama
Miller, George A. (George Amos)
Panama -- Description and travel
What the West Indian needs is not more vigorous swaying of congregations
nor more loudly shouting enthusiasts, but a program of Christian living
that will enlarge the boundaries of life and push back the horizons of
interest. Debating societies, reading courses, study clubs, extension
lectures, night schools, vocational training, good moving picture
programs--all of these will do much to break the spell of the past and
introduce new ideas where they will take root and bear harvest. Here is a
fertile field for a Christian settlement, but the settlement worker should
be a resident of the community. One difficulty with the mission work now
conducted is that it is done from the top down, and from the outside in.
Any attempt toward higher education will need some endowment. It is a
tragedy that these people, out of their wretched poverty, are compelled to
pay tuition fees for the meager education that their children receive.
Some of the plans now being formulated for a broader work in these
communities deserve every encouragement and support.
It is greatly to the credit of the West Indian that he nearly always
manages in some way to send his children to school, cost what it may.
Considering his opportunities, he does well. If the American people were
suddenly asked to pay one or two dollars a month for each child sent to
school, there would be educational revolution.
It is the intention of the Canal Zone government to house its employees on
the Zone as soon as quarters can be provided, but this will require some
time. As all "silver" employees are charged a monthly rent for these
quarters, the project is a business matter for the Zone. Twelve families
are usually quartered in one two-story house, two rooms and a porch
section to the family, with two wash rooms and sanitary quarters for the
whole house. At five dollars per month rent for each family, the house
yields an income of eight hundred and forty dollars per year. In a
building of about the same size four white families would be quartered
rent free.
[Illustration: THREE IN A ROW]
[Illustration: MOTHER, HOME, AND--THE SIMPLE LIFE]
There is abundant opportunity in the Republic of Panama for the
organization of agricultural colonization schemes. Good land is plentiful.
Families could be placed on the land without much housing expense, and if
food could be supplied them for a few months, self-support would soon be
established. Some philanthropist might render valuable service and open up
new opportunities for a large number of these people by placing them out
on the land where each family could have its own house and where better
conditions prevail. A colony of one thousand souls grouped about a central
church and school and store would afford new hope and better living to
these dwellers in the crowded tenements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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