The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 05, May, 1888Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 05, May, 1888
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
I would like to bring before you three pictures which I saw this week.
The first is the interior of a single room. The tattered, soiled bed
and the fireplace took up a large part of the room, and the rest was
nearly filled with the confusion of odds and ends that make up the
belongings of such a home. A feeble fire rested on the uneven bricks
of the fireplace, and the chimney above was covered with newspapers in
the last stages of dilapidation and dirt. There was no window, but a
little sliding shutter, moved aside a few inches, admitted light
enough to make the darkness visible as it fell on the smoke-stained
boards, and the dusky faces of the inmates seated close to the fire on
old chairs and boxes. A home more forlorn than this little pen, which,
with a smaller back shed, is the only residence of at least five human
beings, I can hardly conceive.
Now for a more cheering picture. It is a cozy sitting-room, papered
with taste and furnished in harmony. Everything looks neat, from the
snowy bed-spread to the pretty clock on the mantel, and the dainty
bunch of pansies on the wall above. Open doors give glimpses of other
rooms as well ordered as this, while intelligence and kindness beam in
the dark faces of gentle mother and cheery bright-eyed daughters. When
people ask us how we can bear to teach "niggers," they generally have
in mind those tattered, lazy persons, who are most wont to show
themselves on the street corners, and so make the deepest impression
on the average white mind.
But look at my third picture, and you will see both how we can like
our work, and what is one of the things that make a difference between
the second home I have described and the first. The large school-room
is filled. More than one hundred and twenty-five students are arranged
in classes, most of whom are standing in their places ready to pass to
recitation rooms. One of their number is at the piano. Another stands
at the desk to give the word of command. Now he strikes the bell and
the pupils in long file pass out, marching with their heads up. Not a
teacher is in sight. Everything is orderly and is running of itself,
as it does every day. This is nothing wonderful, of course, though I
know some white schools which could not be trusted to this degree to
the control of monitors. But it is only a sign of the influences that
here lead to self-reliance and self-control. Every year a new set of
uncouth and undeveloped young people come shambling in, looking around
with bewildered eyes. But they soon begin to straighten up and fall
into step. Their vague ideas get settled, and their minds, slow at
first, wake up. In a few years they will be made over new, not
perfect, but vastly improved. They will be out teaching, spreading
light from scores of new centres, and sending new pupils to "Old Le
Moyne."
{136}
* * * * *
THE EVANGELIST AT WORK.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account