The barrier of language of course had first to be removed. For this
reason his studies were begun with private teaching. In the course
of her visits to missionary societies, Mrs. House made an address
at North Granville, New York, and there told of the boys they had
brought to America to educate. This address, as will be observed in
a letter of Boon’s that follows later, prompted a generous offer
on the part of Mr. Wallace C. Willcox, principal of the military
academy at that place, to give free tuition to Boon Itt, provided
friends would care for his needs. This offer was gladly accepted,
and in January, 1880, Boon and Kawn entered the academy.
In the fall, Mr. Willcox transferred his relations to the military
school at Mohegan Lake, New York, and his personal interest in the
two boys carried them with him, so that for that academic year
Boon was at Mohegan. In the fall of 1881, he was sent to Williston
Seminary, Northampton, Massachusetts, to prepare for college. There
he distinguished himself for brightness of mind and fondness of
athletics, particularly swimming—in which art every normal boy of
Bangkok is an adept from childhood. Graduating at Williston, in the
fall of 1885 he matriculated at Williams College. There he spent
four years, pursuing the classical course, and graduated with the
degree A.B. in 1889.
The college course finished, there came to him one of those severe
tests of his consecration and high sense of duty that marked his
life at intervals. Between medicine and the ministry he hesitated,
but only to weigh in his mind which of the two professions would be
the one in which he could render the greatest good to his native
land. Of the need of medicine there could be no doubt; even a
young man could perceive the advantage of modern medical science
for a land where ignorance of the body and superstition were the
allies to cause suffering, contagion and pestilence. He could well
appreciate also the value of the gentle art of healing as a means
of winning the people’s attention while others might preach the
Gospel to them. It was no small tribute to the greater power of the
ministry in his judgment, therefore, that he resolved to prepare
himself for that profession because he deemed the Gospel itself the
greatest need for his countrymen.
Having decided for the ministry he entered the Theological Seminary
at Auburn, New York. There his grace of meekness, coupled with
sterling worth, won for him a high place in the esteem of both
his fellow students and the faculty. He had no ambition to be a
popular leader, and yet in spite of his retiring disposition he
was the center of a warm fellowship because of his high ideals.
During the summer vacation of 1890 he served a parish at Bad Axe,
Michigan, and in the next summer was the acting pastor at Bergen,
New York. He graduated from the seminary in May, 1892, and on the
eleventh of the same month was ordained to the Gospel ministry by
the Presbytery of Rochester. In that year also he acquired American
citizenship. While awaiting the matter of appointment to the
field, he took a post-graduate course at Auburn, at the same time
supplying the Presbyterian Church at Manlius, N. Y.