Mrs. House was so modest in the estimate of her own work for women
that she failed to appraise fully what she had done. No doubt
the meagerness of results up to the time of her resignation and
the smallness of the achievement in comparison with her hopes
caused the whole to appear insignificant. None of her letters give
expression to the feeling of accomplishment but dwell largely upon
the great need and the unappropriated opportunity. However, a
careful review of the development of education for women in Siam
gives to Mrs. House a very high place among all the consecrated
women who contributed the labours of hand and head and heart to
that object. Without detracting one iota from the praise that
belongs to others, but rather reflecting light upon their measure
of honour, it may be said that to Mrs. House belongs the credit
for certain important steps which marked the development and
contributed to the permanent establishment of female education in
Siam.
In the early attempts at educating girls in the homes of the
missionaries the aim in view was the conversion of the girls,
to which the education in reading was incidental. Without
minimising the value of education as an agency for religion Mrs.
House viewed education as an object greatly to be desired in
itself with manifold advantages issuing from it, but especially
having an influence upon the whole social status of womankind. A
second factor utilised by her for the development of her object
was domestic and manual training as a part of the broad policy
of education. Previously the few girls in the homes of the
missionaries had been trained in ways of work to make them more
efficient servants for the earning of their keep, but there was no
attempt to give instruction of this character to others. Mrs. House
included domestic training in the scope of education. Moreover,
she showed herself ready to appropriate valuable ideas wherever she
found them, and when she saw that Mrs. McFarland later utilised
this economic factor to draw girls into her school at Petchaburi,
she readily adopted the same method.
But if the efforts of several missionary women to teach small
groups of girls may be likened to the foundations of female
education in Siam, then the boarding school which Mrs. House
established must be likened to the corner-stone of the structure
which has since grown into a beautiful and impressive temple of
learning. Hitherto classes had been the voluntary undertaking
of individuals in their eagerness to help their sisters out of
darkness; but in each case the undertaking was not a permanent
project but subject to termination with the removal of the
particular teacher. Mrs. House’s achievement at Wang Lang was the
establishment of an institution with a support and a directorate
that insured permanency.
In the voluntary classes the girls were in contact with the
teachers for a few hours at the most and then returned to native
environment to which they were subject for the greater part of the
time. It was like taking one step forward and then stepping back.
The influence of the home and of the city largely obstructed the
good impulses received by the girls while with their teachers. The
advance feature of the Wang Lang school was that the girls were
to remain under constant Christian influence, in frequent contact
with the teachers and subject to the daily discipline of an ideal
Christian home. While the girls were devoting their full mental
energy to study, the Christian religion had the fairest chance to
bear its fruit in ennobled character, free from the blighting
influence of pagan customs and morals.
As indicative of what this school meant for the future educational
program in Siam it is worthy of note that twenty-five years after
the establishment of the Wang Lang school, the entire female
teaching force in the government public schools in Bangkok were
graduates of this school, thirteen in number, all but one of
whom were professing Christians. It is no wonder, then, that the
Minister of Education in Siam, at a commencement of the school,
said:
“The Siamese formerly had a proverb which was in every man’s
mouth: ‘Woman is a buffalo; only man is human.’ Through the
influence of your school and the teaching of the American
Missionary women, we have thrown that old proverb away, and
our own government is founding schools for the education of
girls.”
As a mark of honour to the founder this school was named “The
Harriet House School for Girls,” a name which it retained until
successful growth made it necessary to divide the school and seek
new quarters; the higher grades of which are now known as “Wattana
Wittaya Academy,” while the older name still clings to the old
school in its old location.