Observations at Nashville, Tenn.
By William C. White
The annual meeting of the Southern Publishing Association, which is held early in January, furnishes a convenient time and place for a council to be held by the presidents of conferences, the book men, and other laborers in the three union conferences in the Southern States. The meeting together once a year of representative men from all parts of the Southern field, leads to a oneness of spirit and a harmony of action that foster courage and strength. This year the meeting of the publishing association was preceded by a book men’s convention, and was followed by a joint meeting of the executive committees of the Southern and Southeastern union conferences. The meeting of the book men was well attended by canvassers, and also by ministers from all the Southern States, from North Carolina and Florida in the east to Texas in the west. As the result of the faithful and united efforts of the canvassers in the field and the workmen in the factory, the Southern Publishing Association showed a profit from earnings of nearly seven thousand dollars, which augmented by more than three thousand dollars in gifts, brought the net gains of the institution for the year to more than ten thousand dollars. Placing this beside the gains for the year of the Review and Herald and the Pacific Press, we see in the three houses, which have been so heavily handicapped during recent years by the losses resulting from fires and removals, a net gain of more than thirty thousand dollars. From the first, the Nashville meetings were characterized by broad plans and good courage for the future. Next to the publishing house, the institution in the South which has received the most attention from our people, is the Nashville Sanitarium. This is now a well-equipped institution, beautifully situated on a ten-acre tract of land about two miles south of the city, on the Murfreesborough pike. It has accommodations for thirty-five patients, and employs about twenty nurses and helpers. Dr. W. A. George, who is chairman of our General Conference Medical Department, is the medical superintendent of this institution. His many years of successful experience as a physician and surgeon in the Nebraska Sanitarium at College View, give assurance that when his skill shall become known in the South, this sanitarium will be largely patronized. During the past year the Southern Union Conference has purchased, at a small part of its original cost, a large bakery and health food factory, on the railway line between Edgefield and Madison, about nine miles from Nashville. In company with Elder G. A. Irwin, I visited this place. It is well equipped and ready for work. Sister Josephine Gotzian, who has helped in the establishment of sanitarium work in many places, and Elder Irwin, loaned the union conference the funds required to purchase the plant, and now, as soon as some large-hearted friends of the work will lend them five thousand dollars to be used as a working capital, the wheels of the factory will begin to move. In the West we have five sanitarium bakeries in operation; in the East and South, not one. Here is a plant favorably located for the South and East. There are a score of sanitariums and schools ready to use its products as soon as it can do satisfactory work, and it waits only for capital with which to operate. One afternoon it was my privilege to visit the property purchased last summer for a sanitarium for the colored people. I had read favorable descriptions of the location and the building, but could realize much better, after a visit, the many advantages of the place. The location is excellent. It is only one block from a street-car line, and but five or six blocks from the commodious meeting-house of our colored church. The corner lot stands high and dry, one hundred five feet by two hundred ten feet, providing room for the present building and for a nurses’ dormitory when needed. The new bath-rooms were being plastered, and it was expected that within a month the place would be open for patients. Much of the equipment of the bath-rooms was that which had been used in former years, when, with meager support and amid many discouragements, treatment-rooms were conducted in rented buildings in the heart of the city. The rooms are now furnished, though fitted up economically, will be comfortable and prepared for doing good work. The furniture for the kitchen, dining-room, parlor, and patients’ rooms was very meager. And as I looked at the twelve or more rooms needing furniture, I thought of as many large sanitariums in different parts of the country, whose physicians, nurses, and other helpers would be willing to pay for the furniture of at least one room in this institution, if they could see the need. Brother D. E. Blake, and his wife, Dr. Lottie Isbell Blake, are in charge of the work. Brother Blake, while acting as steward, is also pursuing medical studies at the Meharry Medical College. And Sister Blake, while acting as physician and teacher in the institution, will do much work outside. The opportunities for evangelistic work before Brother and Sister Blake are excellent. Brother Blake has been teaching a large Bible class in the Sunday-school connected with the college; and Dr. Blake has been engaged by the same college to teach hydrotherapy, giving two lectures each week. Some members of her class desire to visit the sanitarium to study the subject further, and to see the methods demonstrated. The opportunity for Christian Help work before Dr. Blake and her helpers is very large. One day it was my good fortune to catch a ride from the Madison school across country about ten miles to the Hillcrest school, where Prof. Floyd Bralliar and Brother O. R. Staines are working hard to build up and open a school for colored youth, conducted on principles similar to those followed by Brethren E. A. Sutherland and P. T. Magan in their work at Madison. For a long time our brethren of the Southern Union Conference felt that a training-school for colored youth should be established near Nashville, and when the plans of Brethren Staines and Bralliar were laid before the executive committee, they received the most hearty approval. The enterprise was incorporated under the Public Utilities act of Tennessee, and the organization was modeled after the plan of the Madison school. The trustees chosen were Elder A. J. Haysmer, Prof. F. R. Rogers, Dr. A. J. Harris, Prof. F. Bralliar, O. R. Staines, H. E. Simkin, and W. J. Pflugradt. The matter of securing a suitable location was attended with some perplexity. But after thorough search was made, a beautiful place was found about six miles east of Nashville, on the White’s Creek pike. Here, on the borders of a large district occupied mostly by prosperous colored farmers, a ninety-acre tract was found and purchased. About one third of the tract is an oval hill dotted with second-growth trees. This furnishes building sites and pasturage. Back of this hill, and bordered by the creek, are sixty acres of very fertile valley land. One year before, I had seen this place, when the only buildings were the brick farmhouse of five rooms, and an old, broken-down barn. At the time of this visit there had been added two six-room cottages, and there was timber on the ground for another. Since returning west I have received several letters from friends of the work in the South, saying that they had thought of helping to build cottages for students at Hillcrest, and asking what I thought of the enterprise. I think that it is an enterprise deserving of our sympathy, and worthy of our encouragement and support. One year ago last January, we were discussing the advisability of founding an intermediate school and a small sanitarium for colored people near Nashville, at a probable cost of thirty to forty thousand dollars. To-day we have both the sanitarium and the school, at a cost of less than twenty thousand dollars. They are not so large as we might wish, but they are ready for service.