advance the cause of temperance and morality. A flourishing Band of
Hope, taking in nearly every pupil in the three lower departments,
has been doing its good work throughout the year. The society for
the older ones, not strictly confined to the school, has also been
doing its work. White Cross societies have been formed, and without
doubt will prove of great help to their members. The Band of Mercy
belonging to the First Primary Division should not be forgotten.
The school prayer-meeting has been encouraging, and considerable
time has been taken up in the study of the Scriptures.
GEO. A. WOODARD.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
CLOSING EXERCISES AT SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
A beautiful feature of the Commencement season here at Santee was
the communion service of last Sunday, at which time six young
Indian men came forward from among their companions and publicly
united themselves to God’s people! We call them boys, but they are
not boys; they are old enough to realize the position they now
occupy, and it has come to them only after the long, hard struggle
which seems always to insure earnest lives for the future. Most
beautiful of all was the baptism! Tears rolled down their cheeks as
they bent for a blessing from the white man’s God and their God.
The eyes of the teachers, who had prayed and labored so earnestly
for this very occasion, were filled to overflowing. Five different
tribes were represented by these boys: Mandan, Ree, Assinaboine,
Yanktonais and Titon. Two of the young men are the sons of chiefs
still in their blankets, who, recognizing the great needs of their
people, are urging their sons on to more earnest study, so that
they may come back as missionaries to those who wait for them as
for deliverers.
It would seem enough of an achievement that these scores of Indian
boys and girls have been brought out of the superstition, the
unbelief, the savagery of their tribes, into the customs, manners
and religion of civilization, even if the work stopped there; but
the three days following the communion Sabbath have shown such
results in regard to a growth as well as change of mind, that to
one seeing the work for the first time it is simply marvelous.
It is one thing to sit in an Eastern audience and listen to
the most earnest recital of the needs of, and work among, the
Indians, and to say, “O, yes, the needs are very great; the work
is glorious; we fully understand your solution of the ‘Indian
problem’; we agree with you and aid you!” (while in a day the needs
are forgotten, and the work is overlooked). It is another thing to
stand here on the ground and listen to the silent appeals of these
hundreds of thirsty human souls—appeals that are all the stronger
because of their utter helplessness. Another thing is it to stand
and _behold_ the work already done, and the change already made! To
see with our own eyes is to wonder and believe, in such a way that
we can never forget. Would that all men might not only hear, but
see!
On Friday, the 24th, began the yearly examinations of the Santee
Normal Training School. Teachers and scholars were alive to the
duties placed upon them, and the end of the seventeenth year
found all active as ever. The recitations extended throughout
Friday, Monday and Tuesday, and visitors from the Agency and
surrounding towns were made welcome. The school-rooms, thrown open
together, were well filled during most of the sessions. Especially
interesting was the map-drawing and accompanying recitation by the
older geography students. The recitation showed that an Indian may
have as clear and correct an idea of the formation of this earth
and its divisions into hemispheres, countries, etc., as any white
boy. The maps were accurately and admirably drawn. The language
lessons were novel, and showed good work on the part of the
teachers. Stories were read to the students which they were asked
to re-write in as good English as possible. The following from a
boy brought into the school last fall, is a good illustration of
the way in which they think and speak in English: “We get all our
silk from a little creature called worm. The little creature is
green color. She lay number of eggs and then died, and they have
never seen their children and father.”
Music is by no means drudgery to the Indians. Passionately fond of
it, they practice with patience, and the results have been more
than satisfactory. Considering the lack of all discipline in their
natures, the examinations this year, both in vocal and instrumental
music, have been remarkable. Those thousands in the East who heard,
last winter, the singing of the Santee quintette, can easily
believe that this is true.
Gymnastics have been practiced as a means of teaching accuracy and
quickness of thought. The precision acquired by the students shows
that it has been a good discipline, and would do credit to any
school.
The recitations in mathematics were good. The work in algebra
deserves special mention. One thing is very evident in studying
the school work here; that is, that while in everything requiring
simple memory the Indian is fully equal to the white boy, perhaps
more than equal, his reasoning faculties are much behind, on
account of the lack of such faculties in the generations of his
ancestors; so mathematical work requires patient plodding, month
after month, for each step gained. There is very great need of such
discipline among this people, and it is one of the most difficult
things in this work of education and Christianization.
Twenty minutes were given on Monday to the workings of a model
normal class in botany. It was most unique, carried on wholly by
the advanced students. They showed clearly the most approved manner
and methods not only of teaching, but also of learning. The whole
was skillfully and understandingly done.
Tuesday evening was devoted to a literary entertainment. Space
allows only of a word or two in regard to it. A former graduate
of Santee, who is now one of its teachers, read an essay on
“Civilization” well worth repeating. He began with the earliest
known civilization before Christ; came down through the centuries
with examples proving Christianity to be the mainspring of modern
civilization, ending with a touching picture of the angels of God
looking down upon this, the greatest nation of the world, and
watching anxiously to see it turn a listening ear to the plea of
the poor Indian for this very knowledge of God, which he realizes
is his only salvation, his only path to the civilization for which
he longs. Beautifully pathetic were the words in which he spoke of
our common brotherhood and of the longing of his people for better
things.
On Wednesday morning the exercises opened with a battalion drill,
and later, time was given to an exhibition of the industrial
work of the students. The blacksmith, carpenter and shoe shops
held proof of good solid work on the part of the boys; while the
needle-work of the girls and small boys was exceptional. The talent
for free-hand drawing is very general among the Indians, and the
collection of specimens was good.
The exercises closed on Wednesday evening with a social gathering
in the large dining hall. There were present all the boys and
girls of the school, the teachers, employees, and many visitors.
Blanketed Indians mingled with the rest, and many nationalities
were represented. It was a novel company, but all were happy and
glad. With the close of the evening, Santee finished a successful
year. Very early on Thursday morning nearly a score of the students
were busy with preparations for departure. In the quiet of the dawn
some of us heard the sound of music, most unusual at this hour; and
one of the teachers venturing to the chapel, found the young men
holding a meeting for prayer. It was their own idea; they had waked
one another quietly for it. It was the surest safeguard against
the temptations they were going out to meet. This single incident
shows better than words the missionary spirit pervading the whole
school. And so, to-day, with the departure of the students, goes
out the gospel influence of Santee—far North into Canada, East into
Minnesota, and West into Montana, never to diminish, but to grow
and spread until the white man’s God shall be indeed the God of all
the Indians.
What is true of the advance of the pupils of Santee is indicative
of the advance of the whole people. There is surely a bright day
coming for the Indian.
MRS. CHAS. W. SHELTON.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO.
The story which I have to tell this month may startle our readers
east of the Rockies, though the hard fact underlying it has long
been known to us on this Pacific slope, and especially in San
Francisco.
On Sunday, June 5th, among seven Chinese who were baptised and
received to Bethany church, was one young woman about fifteen
years of age. She was the second female Chinese received to our
fellowship, for out of more than 120 of that nation whom I have
baptised, all but two have been males.
This young woman is remarkably beautiful in person, pleasing in
her ways, and interesting in character. Her father is in China.
Her mother, quite in accordance, perhaps, with the moralities of
Chinese heathenism, had taken to herself another husband for the
time being, and had gone to Arizona to ply her trade, the nature of
which I do not _certainly_ know, and therefore will not suggest. To
raise funds she had _pawned_ this girl for $250, but had paid $100
on her debt. A very estimable Chinaman, not a professed Christian,
but one of whom we have hoped much, knowing the parties and hearing
that little Ah Yung was being harshly treated, advanced the balance
of the debt and took possession of the child. He placed her in the
family of our helper, Jee Gam. Thus she became known to the lady
teachers in our Central Mission, one of whom went up-stairs each
evening to the apartments occupied by Jee Gam’s family, to give her
a lesson, and also (as always) to speak to her of Christ.
At first indifferent and even hostile, she softened at length,
and began to wish that she might become a Christian. With this
softening of the heart towards Christ, there rose, of course, an
abhorrence and dread of the destiny which, according to heathen
customs, awaited her. She did not, however, at first open her heart
fully to her teacher, but said that she would like to earn some
money, and to work for wages in some American family. A place was
found for her which, as being a little remote from the city, was
likely to be a safe refuge. But when the time for her removal came,
unexpected obstacles were interposed. Jee Gam, while quite willing
to have her go, felt that it would be neither honorable nor safe
for him to deliver her to any one except the man who entrusted her
to him; and this one shrunk from the responsibility of letting her
go where it might be difficult for her mother to resume possession
of her. Meanwhile the case became more urgent because of a report
that her mother would soon be in San Francisco, for, with her
arrival, all possibility of legal protection for the child would be
gone. Miss Jessie S. Worley, the principal of our Central School,
suddenly cut the knot by causing herself, with no one’s consent
except that of the child, to be appointed her legal guardian, and
she holds her under such protection now.
The day after Ah Yung’s baptism, I think it was, the mother
appeared. Entreaties proving vain, she sought by other methods
to bring her daughter under her own control, or else to get from
some one the coin she was supposed to be worth; for such a girl,
just budding into womanhood, in our Chinese matrimonial market, is
said to be worth from $500 to $1,500. Last Saturday the Chinaman
who had befriended Ah Yung appeared at my study. It was with great
difficulty that he could maintain his self-control, though he is a
man of strong and steady nerves. His lips quivered as he talked,
and his athletic frame often trembled. The mother had appealed to
the Six Companies, and his life was at stake. Since then, as I
have been informed, a meeting of the representatives of the Six
Companies has been held, and our friend was summoned to appear
before them. He was given till to-day (June 17th) to restore the
girl to her mother—an act entirely beyond his power. Meanwhile, the
High-Binders were already on his track, and he scarcely feels safe
even in Oakland and in his own employer’s house. He will probably
be obliged to flee, perhaps to some point far East, for he will not
be able, even if disposed, to surrender the dear child to the fate
to which, in her mother’s hands, she would be doomed.
This has brought closer home to me than ever before the fact of an
_imperium in imperio_ in our Chinese communities. It stirs one’s
blood to think that this young man can make no effective appeal to
our Government against this secret tyranny. It may very likely be
that if he should be murdered, his murderer, if convicted, would be
hung; but this is at best a cold and shadowy comfort in the present
emergency.
“A good argument, this,” some one avers, “for hustling the whole
brood out of the land!” But in so doing we should not help
ourselves at all, and we should hustle them back into deeper
darkness and severer cruelty. A good argument, rather, as it
seems to me, for pouring in with intenser zeal and more practical
endeavor, the life-giving, freedom-giving light of Christ.
W. C. POND.
* * * * *
BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.
MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.
* * * * *
Our matrons and teachers find much to interest them in studying the
characteristics of the students as exhibited in their school life,
and especially are they interested in following the students during
vacations to their homes and among the people on the plantations.
Witness the following extracts from the correspondence of one of
our matrons:
I think you would be more surprised and delighted to make a tour
of our Boys’ Hall, as I did one evening a few weeks before school
closed, than to go through the Ladies’ Hall, because you might
not expect so much of the young men. I must say, the absolute
cleanliness, order and quiet that reigned as I went around in the
time of evening study, was more than I expected.
Nearly every room had its pictures, every one its little case
for books, some a window full of plants, and all the ordinary
conveniences spick and span, with the beds beautifully made up.
Some rooms, especially those of the apprentices, were full of
ingenious little contrivances which they have made themselves,
and so, of course, take double pleasure in. Their matron kept a
diligent eye for something to criticise, and, sure enough, some
of their books were wrong end up, and she asked the boys if they
expected people to stand on their heads to read the titles.
* * * * *
The comfort, convenience and neatness of our plain little rooms,
where the girls, and equally the boys, are required to have “a
place for everything, and everything in its place,” form by painful
contrast one of the special trials of our young people when they go
out to cabin life in their teaching and other vacation work.
After they have learned to love the new way, it is very hard for
them to have no room to themselves, no facilities for bathing, and
small chance to display the good taste they have learned to use in
the arrangement and care of their personal belongings.
One of our older girls, who keeps a gem of a room here, felicitates
herself on having a room to herself where she boards, even though
tucked up and the walls full of other people’s clothes, a saddle,
and sundries.
Another of our girls passing through her first experience of “going
out,” wrote a wofully homesick letter, saying there was no place to
hang up or lay down anything where she was staying; that her trunk
had to go under her bed, and after she had made her morning toilet
she couldn’t even find room to put down her comb and brush, but had
to haul out her trunk and put them back into it. We expect to hear
a more cheerful song after her school fills up and she becomes busy
and interested, for she is really a very energetic girl, practical
and positive. We have written advising her to get her brother, who
is skillful with tools and teaches near enough to visit her on
Saturdays, to put up some shelves and other conveniences in her
school-room, to make that as homelike as possible, have her sewing
there, and gather her girls in to learn to sew, crochet, etc., if
practicable.
[This brother is one of our Biblical class, and already beginning
to preach. He had a tramp of a hundred miles or so after school
closed, looking for work for himself and others, back from the
railway in the more inaccessible regions, where the schools are not
snapped up so quickly. In writing of his search, he said: “I have
had what some would call a hard time, but I have enjoyed it, and I
_know_ that the Lord is with me.” Blessed assurance!]
* * * * *
All the girls write, sooner or later, to their matron after going
home. Some of the letters are rather amusing.
One harum-scarum little miss, who made no end of care when here,
after being home a fortnight seems to have been visited with some
sense of her shortcomings, and wrote: “If I live I am coming back
in the fall, and try to be a better girl than I was before.”
She refers to the text of Scripture that had been given them all as
a watchword, and says she often thinks of it; then, as if to confer
a like benefit upon her kind friend, she opens her Bible at random
and copies: “And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes
and shave off all his hair and wash himself in water that he may be
clean.” After two or three more of similar tenor, she says: “Think
of these verses as long as you live, and also of me,” and ends all
by this new rendering of a familiar passage: “Be not overcome evil
with good, but overcome good with evil.” Encouraging, isn’t it?
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR JUNE, 1887.
* * * * *
MAINE, $234.31.
Bangor. Hammond St. Cong. Ch. 76.98; Sab. Sch.
of First Parish Ch., 14.32 $91.30
Bethel. Sab. Sch. of Second Cong. Ch. 11.00
Biddeford. Primary Dept. Sab. Sch. of Cong.
Ch., _for Savannah, Ga._ 15.00
Blanchard. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Blue Hill. Mrs. H. W. Johnson, 1; Mrs. M. S.
Mayo, 1 2.00
Brewer. M. Hardy (10 of which _for Pleasant
Hill, Tenn._) 25.00
Castine. Mrs. C. M. Cushman, for _Tougaloo U._ 2.75
Gardiner. Ladies, _for Debt_. 4.65
Kennebunk. Union Ch. and Soc. 22.00
Lyman. Cong. Ch. 8.00
Machias. Center St. Cong. Ch., 6.70; “C. L.,” 5 11.70
Machias. Sara P. Hill’s Sab. Sch. Class, _for
Indian M._ 1.25
Scarboro. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 10.25
South Berwick. Mrs. Lewis’ S. S. Class, _for
Wilmington, N.C._ 1.50
Waterford. First Cong. Ch. 13.00
Winthrop. Bbl. and Box of C., _for Wilmington,
N.C._; 1.91 _for freight_ 1.91
Yarmouth. Mrs. Reynold’s S. S. Class, _for
Wilmington, N.C._ 8.00
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $374.79.
Amherst. Cong. Ch. 15.75
Bennington. Cong. Ch. and People 9.31
Canaan. “Friends,” Bbl. Books etc., _for
Straight U._
Concord. Mrs. L. N. Barron, _for Student Aid,
Straight U._ 25.00
Concord. “A Friend of the Colored Race” 5.05;
J. W. Chandler, 1 6.05
Derry. Sab. Sch. of First Cong. Ch. 19.00
Durham. Cong. Ch. 44.93
Exeter. “A Thank Offering” 25.00
Franklin. “Friends” 3; Mrs. John H. Rowell, 2,
_for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 5.00
Great Falls. Bbl. of C. _for Pleasant Hill,
Tenn._
Greenville. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Henniker. Cong. Ch. and Soc., to const. MISS
ZILPHA BARNES L. M. 38.00
Hinsdale. Cyrus Newhall 1.00
Hollis. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 18.76
Jaffrey. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for Woman’s
Work_ 4.00
Lancaster. Cong. Ch. 14.40
Lebanon. “Friends,” Bbl. Books, etc., _for
Straight U._
Nashua. Sab. Sch. Class by Miss Dora Spalding,
_for Storrs Sch._ 20.00
Portsmouth. North Ch. and Soc. 101.19
Salem. Ladies of Cong. _Ch., for Debt_ 6.00
Salisbury. Ladies’ Miss’y Soc., _for Atlanta
U._ 2.00
Tilton. C. C. Sampson, _for Student Aid,
Straight U._ 3.00
Walpole. Y. P. M. Circle of Cong. Ch. 11.40
VERMONT, $1,326.27.
Benson. Miss J. Kent 1.50
Bridport. Ladies, 26; Sab. Sch., 5, _for
McIntosh, Ga._, by Mrs. Ellen D. Wild 31.00
Brownington. S. S. Tinkham 5.00
Burlington. 2 Bbls. and Box of C., _for
McIntosh, Ga._
Cornwall. Cong. Ch. and Soc. (25 of which from
Ladies, _for McIntosh, Ga._) 73.01
Dorset. Mrs. William D. Marsh, _for Student
Aid, Fisk U._ 25.00
Dorset. Sab. Sch. and W. H. M. S. of Cong.
Ch., _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 30.00
Fairfield. Cong. Ch. 4.75
East Fairfield. Cong. Ch. 3.61
Georgia. Ladies, _for McIntosh, Ga._, by Mrs.
Ellen D. Wild 9.00
Granby. “A Friend,” _for Debt_ 5.00
Granby. Infant Class, by W. H. Matthews, _for
Rosebud Indian M._ 1.10
Manchester. Cong. Ch., 36.01; Samuel G. Cone 50 86.01
Manchester. Ladies, _for McIntosh, Ga._, by
Mrs. Ellen D. Wild 5.00
Middlebury. Lillie C. Chapman, _for Indian M._ 0.20
Norwich. Ashley Blodgett 5.00
Rutland. Ladies, Bbl. of C., _for Straight U._
Swanton. Mrs. Augusta Dorman, _for McIntosh,
Ga._, by Mrs. Ellen D. Wild 2.00
Swanton. Box of C., _for McIntosh, Ga._
Springfield. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for
McIntosh, Ga._ 8.45
Townshend. Cong. Ch. (5 of which from Mrs.
Rice) 15.50
West Brattleboro. Cong. Ch. 15.14
——————
$326.27
LEGACY.
Saint Johnsbury. Estate of Miss Emma L.
Taylor, by James C. Taylor, Ex. 1,000.00
—————————
$1,326.27
MASSACHUSETTS, $3,346.37.