It is not possible to ascribe to Mrs. House the beginnings of
education of women in Siam. Even apart from the efforts of the
women of the other missions to teach the Chinese women, Mrs.
Mattoon had at the outset of her career taken native girls into
her home with a view to educating them. Later she succeeded in
gathering a class of little girls in the Peguan village across the
river from the capital. When Mrs. House came, in 1856, Mrs. Mattoon
was conducting a class of six or seven married women whom she
taught to read while at the same time giving religious instruction.
Shortly after the coming of Mrs. House, Mrs. Mattoon seems to have
withdrawn from such work in her favour, as her own time was then
largely occupied with her domestic duties.
Modern female education in Siam may be said to have begun when the
newly crowned King Mongkut, in August, 1851, requested the ladies
of the several missions to come to the palace in turns for the
purpose of instructing some of the royal ladies. This was five
years before Mrs. House reached Siam. The intention of the king,
as he expressed it, was to qualify the ladies of the palace to
converse with him in English. The effect of this royal patronage of
female education was not only to break the bondage of custom which
held women in perpetual ignorance but to quicken popular interest
in the mission school.
Though Mrs. House promptly enlisted in assisting her husband in
the school for boys, her greatest sympathy was with the girls of
Siam. From the first she sought to reach out toward them, making
her first point of contact by a class in English Bible. As she came
to perceive the age-long inheritance of ignorance that impoverished
the successive generations of Siamese women she was kindled with
a desire to share with them the heritage of Christian women. This
lack of education she pictures:
“When we first went to Siam not one woman or little girl
in ten could read, although all the boys are taught by the
priests in the temples to read and write. One day a very
bright interesting little girl, twelve years old perhaps,
came to our boat to see the strangers. When asked if she
could read, she did not answer yes or no, but with surprise
exclaimed, ‘Why, I am a girl’—as if we ought to have known
better than to ask a girl such a question.”
The chief obstacle to education was the notion that education
had no value for them. Woman’s place was to serve and please man.
So long as she could cook rice, take care of the children and do
necessary work without knowing books, why learn? Perhaps Mrs. House
did not have a vision of making education an established factor in
the customs of Siam; that possibility was too vast and too remote
to conceive under the circumstances. But she did have a clear
vision that education was indispensable to the amelioration of
womankind.
Her first step was taken in 1858, concerning which the doctor
wrote: “Daily now Harriette has four female pupils about her,
and the first day they were present, she came to me looking so
happy, saying: ‘O, I have been in my element today—teaching girls
again.’” This step was of importance chiefly as the beginning of
her definite work in female education. Otherwise it was rather
commonplace. These girls were just the girls whom the missionaries
had taken into their homes primarily to influence for Christ. All
the missionary families have done this and are doing so today. Mrs.
House gathered them into a class in order that they might have more
regular school training, and as other families came and other girls
were taken into the homes the number in her class increased. This
class was partly industrial, for besides instruction in reading the
Bible and other elementary subjects, the girls were taught to sew.
With the aid of an American sewing-machine their skill was utilised
to make garments for the boys of the boarding school; showing their
work could be of value. About this time Mrs. House also succeeded
in winning the confidence of a group of older women whom she
instructed in an informal manner in domestic economy.
Along with indifference there was a more concrete obstacle to
progress in education of girls—the economic factor. Time spent
in class was time lost from labour in the house or in the field;
and this was a serious matter. While Mrs. House had demonstrated
the economic value of domestic training for girls by the saving in
expense for the boys’ school through their sewing, it remained for
Mrs. S. G. McFarland, at Petchaburi, in 1865, to apply this fact
in such a manner as to draw women into her classes. She offered
prospective pupils employment at a wage equal to that they could
earn elsewhere. So long as they brought in earnings their fathers,
or husbands in some cases, were not particular how they worked;
and if foreigners were foolish enough to pay them to learn, the
returns were a little more certain than in other markets. One of
the conditions of the school was that each pupil would devote a
part of the time to learning to read. The skill of hands which they
acquired by training enabled them to earn their wage and still
leave a good margin of time for this instruction. The result was
a demonstration that trained hands could do more and better work,
and that trained minds made those hands more thrifty. Here was the
answer to the economic objection to female education.
When Mrs. House returned from America, in 1866, she took up her
work with women again. Reporting home, the doctor wrote: “Harriette
is greatly engaged in her labours of teaching etc., going out to
the school room and calling to her at home the women about us of
whom she has a class now morning and afternoon, learning to read.”
This is only a glimpse, but it shows that she returns with her
purpose steady in mind. While Dr. House was on his ill-fated trip
to Chiengmai Mrs. House assumed full charge of the boys’ school and
boarding department, and at the same time continued her classes for
women. Perhaps it should be explained that while the term women is
most commonly used in the doctor’s references to her work, the word
really refers to the young married women for the most part, girls
whom we would class as of the high school ages or just above.
At length Mrs. House introduced the plan which Mrs. McFarland had
tested at Petchaburi, paying women for their work which in turn
was disposed of to advantage, but on condition that part of their
time should be devoted to general instruction in the rudiments
of learning, always including the Bible. With this advance her
work for women passed from the stage of voluntary classes to a
recognised established school. Writing in 1868, Dr. House reported
home:
“Harriette is greatly engaged in her new industrial
school for women. A busy scene on our back verandah every
morning,—eight sewers.... Harriette’s class of women in her
industrial school for women is a success and promises great
good, though it keeps her busy in season and out of season.”
Mrs. House was able to use in this work some of the older girls who
had been under her motherly care for some years. When, in 1871, she
spent a year in America, her industrial school was continued under
the direction of Maa Kate and Maa Esther, who took full charge.