Shortly after marriage the young couple were assigned with W. B.
Toy, M.D., and family to open a new field at Pitsanuloke, some two
hundred and fifty miles up the Meinam River. While Dr. Toy was to
establish a hospital, funds for which were to be provided by the
Board, Boon Itt was to open a school. Through the good offices of
public officials he secured the temporary use of some government
building.
Concerning this enterprise Dr. Eakin writes vividly:
“He began work in a small way, but he did it thoroughly. In
a few months he had attracted attention of the government
authorities. They began to send their sons to the school....
It was a slow process of growth but it was indigenous from
the start. In this respect it was typical of all Boon
Itt’s work. He tried to work with the Siamese people from
the inside out, instead of following the common method of
applying something foreign largely on the outside.
“It required rare self-sacrifice in Mr. Boon Itt to labour
on, teaching the rudiments of learning in that little school
when he felt that he was capable of doing a work that would
loom larger in the public view.... But there was a subtler
temptation in the opportunity to do a work that would make a
greater show before the world. He had warm friends at home
[America] who were rising in business and professional life.
An appeal to them would have enabled him to make his school a
more immediate and manifest success.... He felt the cost in
his very soul, when he turned his back upon that temptation;
but he decided that the slow indigenous work was the only
way to secure permanence.
“The work has gone forward in Pitsanuloke since those days.
A church has been organised there which promises well; but
the present prosperity owes much to the patient digging and
laying foundations out of sight, which was done by Mr. Boon
Itt.”
After a time the government had use for the building and it became
necessary to seek other quarters for the school. Boon Itt leased a
new site of about ten acres on the west bank of the river adjacent
to the barracks, at a nominal price. As the Board had no funds
available for a building he personally secured subscriptions from
local merchants and officials amounting to four thousand ticals
(two thousand dollars), besides lumber and building materials. A
plain but substantial two-story school building of teak wood was
erected under his personal supervision and partly by the labour of
his own hands.
The enrollment of the first year was forty boys, of whom twenty-six
were boarders. The average attendance for that year was ninety-five
per cent. In the competitive examinations later the boys of this
school gained the highest standing over the boys of the government
public school and the Royal Survey school. One of the notable
features of his work was the influence he exerted over the young
men personally. No doubt that influence in a measure was due to
the manner of his religious teaching. He himself has described his
method:
“As I have men who study Christianity I have to spend a good
deal of time formulating what are the fundamental doctrines
of Christianity. We can use phrases in the States and be
understood.... Here it is _de novo_. I use no text-book. I
do not know of any. I endeavour to analyse as honestly as I
know how myself and use my experience as a guide—not as an
infallible guide, but only as a working basis.”
This plan which he adopted was essentially the apostolic method.
In our emphasis on the inspiration of the letters written by
the apostles we are likely to overlook the fact that they are
discussing spiritual truths out of their own lives; their epistles
are “text books” written out of experience under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit. Boon Itt was following the same method so far as
he could.
In addition to being superintendent of the school, he regularly
conducted the Sabbath preaching service, worked in the Sunday
school, and made a tour of exploration as far north as the Lao
border. His wife had charge of a girls’ school which she had
organised. Pitsanuloke was formally organised and recognised as a
regular station in 1899.