THE FUTURE OF THE MISSION
What is the future of this Mission? I have once or twice been an
unwilling listener to a discussion on this point. It has usually been
in the smoking-room of a local mail steamer. The subtle humour of W.W.
Jacobs has shown us that pessimism is an attribute of the village
"pub" also. The alcoholic is always a prophet of doom; and the wish is
often father to the thought.
In our medical work in the wilds we have become a repository of some
old instruments discarded on the death of their owners or cast aside
by the advancing tide of knowledge. Seeing the ingenuity, time, and
expense lavished on many of them, they would make a truly pathetic
museum. Personally I prefer the habits of India to those of Egypt
concerning the departed. If the Pharaoh of the Persecution could see
his mummy being shown to tourists as a cheap side show, I am sure that
he would vote for cremation if he had the choice over again.
It sounds flippant in one who has devoted his life to this work to
say, "Really I don't care what its future may be." I am content to
leave the future with God. No true sportsman wants to linger on, a
wretched handicap to the cause for which he once stood, like a fake
hero with his peg leg and a black patch over one eye. The Christian
choice is that of Achilles. Nature also teaches us that the paths of
progress are marked by the discarded relics of what once were her
corner-stones. The original Moses had the spirit of Christ when he
said, "If Thou wilt, forgive their sin--and if not, I pray Thee, blot
me out of Thy book." The heroic Paul was willing to be eliminated for
the Kingdom of God. It seems to me that that attitude is the only
credential which any Christian mission can give for its existence. If
I felt that my work had accomplished all it could, I would "lay it
down with a will."
As in India and China the missionaries of the various societies are
uniting to build up a native, national Church which would wish to
assume the responsibility of caring for its own problems, so when the
Government of this country is willing and able to take over the
maintenance of the medical work, this Mission would have justified its
existence by its elimination. All lines along which the Mission works
should one day become self-eliminating. Until that time arrives I am
satisfied that the Mission has great opportunities before it. I am an
optimist, and feel certain that God will provide the means to continue
as long as the need exists.
Some believe that the future of this population depends solely on the
attention paid to the development of the resources of the coast. Not
only are its raw products more needed than ever, but even supposing
that unscientific handling of them has depleted the supply, still
there is ample to maintain a larger population than at present. This
can only be when science and capital are introduced here, combined
with an educated manhood fired by the spirit of cooperation.
In large parts of China a famine to wipe out surplus population is
apparently a periodical necessity. An orphanage in India for similar
reasons does not seem to be as rationally economic as one for the
Labrador children. I never see a cliff face from which an avalanche
has removed the supersoil and herbage without thinking in pity of the
crowded sections of China, where tearing up even the roots of trees
for fuel has permitted so much arable land to be denuded by rains
that the food supply gets smaller while the population grows larger.
The future of all medical work depends on whether people want it and
can arrange to get it paid for. If all the world become Christian
Scientists, scientific--which we believe to be also Christian--healing
will everywhere die a natural death--and possibly the people also. But
history suggests that the healing art is one of considerable vitality.
My own belief is that in the apparently approaching socialistic age,
medicine will be communized and provided by the State free to all. If
education for the mind is, why not education for the body?
Certain subtle and very vital psychic influences are probably the best
stock in trade of the "Doctor of the old school." These qualities
appear at present less likely to be "had for hire" in a Government
official. The Chinese may yet return the missionary compliment by
teaching us to adopt their method of paying the doctor only when and
as long as the patient is cured.
Out of the taxes, the major part of which is paid by the people of the
outport districts in this Colony, the Government provides free medical
aid in the Capital, presumably because those who have the spending of
the money mostly reside there. The Mission provides it in the farthest
off and poorest part of the country, Labrador and North Newfoundland,
because there is no chance whatever at present for the poor people to
obtain it otherwise. Our _pro rata_ share of the taxes, if judged by
the paltry Government grant toward the work, would not provide
anything worth having. The people here pay far better in proportion to
their ability for hospital privileges than they do in Boston or
London; the Government pays a little, and the rest comes from the
loving gifts of those who desire nothing better, when they know of
real need, than to make sacrifices to meet it.
One feels that the Chinese and Japanese and all nations will be able
some day to pay for their own doctors, whether they do it on
individualistic or communistic principles. In the present state of the
world I believe the missionary enterprise to be entirely desirable, or
I would not be where I am. But being a Christian with a little faith,
I hope that it may not be so forever. If anything will stimulate to
better methods, it is example, not precept, and perhaps the best work
of this and all missions will be their reflex influences on
Governments through the governed.
To carry on the bare essentials of this work an endowment of at least
a million dollars is necessary. Toward this a hundred and sixty
thousand dollars is all that has been contributed, and in addition we
can count annually upon a small Government grant. Even if this million
dollars were given, it would still leave several thousand dollars to
be raised by voluntary subscription each year, a healthy thing for the
life of any charitable work. On the other hand, the certainty of being
able to meet the main bills is an economy in nerve energy, in time and
in money.
Among our patients brought in one season to St. Anthony Hospital was
the mother of ten children on whom an emergency operation for
appendicitis had to be done--the first time in her life that a doctor
had ever tended her. She came from a very poor home, for besides her
large family her husband had been all his life handicapped by a
serious deformity of one leg caused by a fall. She reminded me of how
some years before a traveller had left her the rug from his dog
sledge, as, without any bedclothes, she was again about to give birth
to a child; how she had actually been unable at times to turn over in
bed, because her personal clothing had frozen solid to the wall of the
one-roomed hut in which she lived.
In April, 1906, in northern Newfoundland I found a young mother near
St. Anthony. She was twenty-six years old, suffering from acute
rheumatic fever, lying in a fireless loft, on a rickety bedstead with
no bedclothes. She had only one shoddy black dress to her name, and no
underwear to keep her warm in bed in a house like that. The floor was
littered with debris, including a number of hard buns which she could
not now eat, but which some charitable neighbour had sent her. She had
a wizened baby of seven months, which every now and then she was
trying to feed by raising herself on one elbow and forcing bread and
water pap, moistened with the merest suspicion of condensed milk, down
its throat. None of her four previous children had lived so long. She
had been under my care three years before for sailor's scurvy. Her
present illness lasted only a week, and in spite of all that we could
do, she died.
The desire of the people to be mutually helpful is undoubted, whether
it is to each other or to some "outsider" like ourselves. I question
if in the so-called centres of civilization the following incident can
be surpassed as evidencing this aspect of their character.
In a little Labrador village called Deep Water Creek I was called in
one day to see a patient: an old Englishman, who was reported to have
had "a bad place this twelvemonth." As I was taken into the tiny
cottage, a bright-faced, black-bearded man greeted me. Three children
were playing on the hearth with a younger man, evidently their father.
"No, Doctor, they aren't ours," replied my host, in answer to my
question. "But us took Sam as our own when he was born, and his mother
lay dead. These be his little ones. You remember Kate, his wife, what
died in hospital."
After the cup of hot tea so thoughtfully provided, I said, "Skipper
John, let's get out and see the old Englishman."
"No need, Doctor. He's upstairs in bed."
Upstairs was the triangular space between the roof and the ceiling of
the ground floor. At each end was a tiny window, and the whole area,
windows included, had been divided longitudinally by a single
thickness of hand-sawn lumber. Both windows were open, a cool breeze
was blowing through, and a bright paper pasted on the wall gave a
cheerful impression. One corner was shut off by a screen of cheap
cheesecloth. Sitting bolt upright on a low bench, and leaning against
the partition, was a very aged woman, staring fixedly ahead out of
blind eyes, and ceaselessly monotoning what was meant for a hymn. No
head was visible among the rude collection of bedclothes.
"Uncle Solomon, it's the Doctor," I called. The mass of clothes moved,
and a trembling old hand came out to meet mine.
"No pain, Uncle Solomon, I hope?"
"No pain, Doctor, thank the good Lord, and Skipper John. He took us in
when the old lady and I were starving."
The terrible cancer had so extended its ravages that the reason for
the veiled corner was obvious, and also for the effective ventilation.
"He suffers a lot, Doctor, though he won't own it," now chimed in the
old woman.
When the interview was over, I was left standing in a brown study till
I heard Skipper John's voice calling me. As I descended the ladder he
said: "We're so grateful you comed, Doctor. The poor old creatures
won't last long. But thanks aren't dollars. I haven't a cent in the
world now. The old people have taken what little we had put by. But
if I gets a skin t' winter, I'll try and pay you for your visit
anyhow."
"Skipper John, what relation are those people to you?"
"Well, no relation 'zactly."
"Do they pay nothing at all?"
"Them has nothing," he replied.
"What made you take them in?"
"They was homeless, and the old lady was already blind."
"How long have they been with you?"
"Just twelve months come Saturday."
I found myself standing in speechless admiration in the presence of
this man. I thought then, and I still think, that I had received one
of my largest fees.
Ours is primarily a medical mission, and nothing that may have been
stated in this book with reference to other branches of the work is
meant in any way to detract from what to us as doctors is the basic
reason for our being here, though we mean ours to be prophylactic as
well as remedial medicine.
St. Anthony having so indisputably become the headquarters of the
hospital stations, there can be but one answer to the question of the
advisability of its closing its doors summer or winter in the days to
come. For not only is our largest hospital located there--its scope
due in great measure to the reputation gained for it by Dr. Little's
splendid services, and continued by Dr. Curtis--but also the
Children's Home, our school, machine shop, the headquarters of various
industrial enterprises, and lastly a large storehouse to be used in
future as a distributing centre for the supplies of the general
Mission. Moreover, the population of the environs of St. Anthony,
owing to their numbers and the fact that they can profit by the
employment given by the Mission, should be able increasingly to
assist in the maintenance of this hospital, though a large number of
its clinic is drawn from distant parts. These patients come not only
from Labrador, the Straits of Belle Isle, and southern Newfoundland,
but we have had under our care Syrians, Russians, Scandinavians,
Frenchmen, and naturally Americans and Canadians, seamen from
schooners engaged in the Labrador fishery.
Harrington Hospital, located on the Canadian Labrador, must for many
years to come depend on outside support. I am Lloyd Georgian enough to
feel that taxation should presuppose the obligation to look after the
bodies of the taxed. The Quebec Government gives neither vote,
representation, adequate mail service, nor any public health grant for
the long section of the coast which it claims to govern, that lies
west of the Point des Eskimo. It is to my mind a severe stricture on
their qualifications as legislators. That hospital should, we believe,
be adequately subsidized and kept open summer and winter. At present
we have to thank the Labrador Medical Mission, which is the Canadian
branch of the International Grenfell Association, for their generous
and continued support of this station.
Battle Harbour and Indian Harbour Hospitals can never be anything but
summer stations, owing to their geographical positions on islands in
frozen seas, on which islands there is practically no population
during the winter months. But gifts and grants sufficient to maintain
a doctor at Northwest River Cottage Hospital, and one if possible in
Lewis Bay, winter supplements to these summer hospitals, are to my
thinking more than justifiable.
As to the future of our hospital stations at Pilley's Islands, Spotted
Islands, and Forteau, that will depend upon the changing demands of
local conditions. That the need of medical assistance exists is
unquestionable, as is evidenced from the many appeals which I receive
to start hospitals or supply doctors in districts at present utterly
incapable of obtaining such help.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ST. ANTHONY HARBOUR]
One still indispensable requisite in our scattered field of work is a
hospital steamer. In fact, not a few of us think that the Strathcona
is the keystone of the Mission. She reaches those who need our help
most and at times when they cannot afford to leave home and seek it.
Her functions are innumerable. She is our eyepiece to keep us
cognizant of our opportunities. She both treats and carries the sick
and feeds the hospitals. She enables us to distribute our charity
efficiently. The invaluable gifts of clothing which the Labrador
Needlework Guild and other friends send us could never be used at all
as love would wish, unless the Strathcona were available to enlarge
the area reached. In spite of all this, those who would quibble over
trifles claim that she is the only craft on record that rolls at
dry-dock! Her functions are certainly varied, but perhaps the oddest
which I have ever been asked to perform was an incident which I have
often told. One day, after a long stream of patients had been treated,
a young man with a great air of secrecy said that he wanted to see me
very privately.
"I wants to get married, Doctor," he confided when we were alone.
"Well, that's something in which I can't help you. Won't any of the
girls round here have you?"
"Oh! it isn't that. There's a girl down North I fancies, but I'm
shipped to a man here for the summer, and can't get away. Wouldn't you
just propose to her for me, and bring her along as you comes South?"
The library would touch a very limited field if it were not for the
hospital ship. She carries half a hundred travelling libraries each
year. She finds out the derelict children and brings them home. She is
often a court of law, trying to dispense justice and help right
against might. She has enabled us to serve not only men, but their
ships as well; and many a helping hand she has been able to lend to
men in distress when hearts were anxious and hopes growing faint. In a
thousand little ways she is just as important a factor in preaching
the message of love. To-day she is actually loaned for her final trip,
before going into winter quarters, to a number of heads of families,
who are thus enabled to bring out fuel for their winter fires from the
long bay just south of the hospital.
Her plates are getting thin. They were never anything but
three-eighths-inch steel, and we took a thousand pounds of rust out of
her after cabin alone this spring. She leaks a little--and no iron
ship should. It will cost two thousand dollars to put her into repair
again for future use. Money is short now, but when asked about the
future of the Mission I feel that whatever else will be needed for
many years to come, the hospital ship at least cannot possibly be
dispensed with.
The child is potential energy, the father of the future man, and the
future state; and the children of this country are integral,
determining factors in the future of this Mission. The children who
are turned out to order by institutions seem sadly deficient, both in
ability to cope with life and in the humanities. The "home" system, as
at Quarrier's in Scotland, is a striking contrast, and personally I
shall vote for the management of orphanages on home lines every time.
This is not a concession to Dickens, whose pictures of Bumble I hope
and believe apply only to the dark ages in which Dickens lived; but
historically they are not yet far enough removed for me to advocate
Government orphanages, though our Government schools are an advance
on Dotheboys Hall.
The human body is the result of physical causes; breeding tells as
surely as it does in dogs or cows, and the probability of defects in
the offspring of poverty and of lust is necessarily greater than in
well-bred, well-fed, well-environed children. The proportion of
mentally and morally deficient children that come to us absolutely
demonstrates this fact; and the love needed to see such children
through to the end is more comprehensive than the mere sentiment of
having a child in the home, and infinitely more than the desire to
have the help which he can bring.
The Government allows us fifty-two dollars a year toward the expense
of a child whose father is dead; nothing if the mother is dead, or if
the father is alive but had better be dead. It would be wiser if each
case could be judged on its merits by competent officials. But we
believe it is a blessing to a community to have the opportunity of
finding the balance.
Tested by its output and the returns to the country, our orphanage has
amply justified itself. One new life resultant from the outlay of a
few dollars would class the investment as gilt-edged if graded merely
in cash. The community which sows a neglected childhood reaps a
whirlwind in defective manhood.
In view of these facts--to leave out of consideration my earnest
personal desire--there can never be any question in my mind as to the
imperative necessity of the Mission's continuance of the work for
derelict children. This conclusion seems to me safeguarded by the fact
that all nations are placing increasing emphasis on "the child in the
midst of them."
When Solomon chose wisdom as the gift which he most desired, the Bible
tells us that it was pleasing to God. St. Paul holds out the hope
that one day we shall know as we are known. But there is a vast
difference between knowledge and being wise. In fact, from the New
Testament itself we are led to believe that the devils knew far more
than even the Disciples.
The school is an essential part of the orphanage. Seeing that the
village children needed education just as much as those for whom we
were more directly responsible, and realizing the value to both of the
cooperation, and that the denominational system which still persists
in the country is a factor for division and not for unity, it became
obviously desirable for us to provide such a bond. Friends made the
building possible. The generosity of a lady in Chicago in practically
endowing it has, we feel, secured its future. We have now a proper
building, three teachers, a graded school, modern appliances for
teaching, and vastly superior results. In these days when the
expenditure of every penny seems a widow's mite, one welcomes the
encouragement of facts such as these to enable one to "carry on."
Modern pedagogy has brought to the attention of even the man in the
street the realization that education consists not merely in its
accepted scholastic aspect, but also that training of the eye and hand
which in turn fosters the larger development of the mind. In the
latter sense our people are far from uneducated. Taking this aptitude
of theirs as a starting-point, some twelve years ago we began our
industrial department, first by giving out skin work in the North, and
later started other branches under Miss Jessie Luther, who
subsequently gave many years of service to the coast.
The cooperative movement is the same question seen from another angle,
and is almost contemporaneous with our earliest hospitals.
It is not unnatural that man, realizing that he is himself like "the
grass that to-morrow is cast into the oven," should worry over the
permanency of the things on which he has spent himself. Though Christ
especially warns us against this anxiety, religious people have been
the greatest sinners in laying more emphasis upon to-morrow than
to-day. The element which makes most for longevity is always
interesting, even if longevity is often a mistake. Almost every old
parish church in England maintains some skeleton of bygone efforts
which once met real needs and were tokens of real love.
The future is a long way off--that future when Christ's Kingdom comes
on earth in the consecrated hearts and wills of all mankind, when all
the superimposed efforts will be unnecessary. But love builds for a
future, however remote; and at present we see no other way than to
work for it, and know of no better means than to insure the permanency
of the hospitals, orphanage, school, and the industrial and
cooperative enterprises, thus to hasten, however little, the coming of
Christ in Labrador.