In the literary field Dr. House was receptive rather than creative.
He was a lover of books but not of writing:
“How irksome and difficult the labour of composition has been
to me,” he says, “I’d rather be a ditch digger and shovel
mud. The getting of a certain amount of writing done by a
given time is out of the question in my case.”
He was appointed the first “librarian” of the Mission back in the
early days when the library consisted of two shelves of books
and some unbound magazines, besides “some Malay, Tamul, Bengali,
Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese books for a long time handed down
in the mission.” His reluctance at the pen partly accounts for
the sparsity of matter published under his name in the missionary
magazines. But the refusal on his part to appear in print in
this fashion was due perhaps more to his fear that journals or
newspapers containing articles on missions would find their way
into the hands of the Siamese government, which might be displeased
with any frank narrative of observations. For this reason he
frequently admonished the recipients of his letters that they
should not take advantage of his absence to publish his comments.
When it came to the needs of the mission, however, he lent his hand
and brain to supply the requirements. The following tracts are
ascribed to him:
_Scripture Facts_, 1848.
_Watt’s Catechism_, bound with The Speller, 1853.
_Child’s Catechism with Commandments and Lord’s Prayer_, 1854.
_Questions in Gospel History_, 1864.
_Stand by the Truth_, 1869.
These last two in conjunction with Mrs. House.
After return to America he wrote a pamphlet, _Notes on Obstetric
Practises in Siam_, (Putnam, 1897). In the volume, _Siam and Laos_
(Presbyterian Board, 1884), several chapters were contributed by
Dr. House, including the very comprehensive and accurate chapter on
_History of Missions in Siam_; but so impersonally did he write the
record that it would be almost impossible for the reader to detect
that a good part of the story had been created in action as well as
recounted by the writer.
The school for boys which Dr. House fostered almost continuously
from its beginning was merged into the Boys’ Christian High School
in 1889. This institution in turn developed in scope until it was
enlarged into the “Bangkok Christian College,” which was organised
in 1915.