The Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute
By M. BESSIE DEGRAW
We have now been in Tennessee one year, and that year has witnessed some growth in the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute. One year ago we had only the old plantation house and one small cottage, and in these and the22coach house we ate, slept, and kept school. During the past twelve months we have put up several cottages for students, and when class work began the sixth of December, we were in various ways better prepared for school work than last year. I am often reminded of the words learned from an old school reader, “Great oaks from little acorns grow,” for the founding of this school has been like the planting of an acorn. The seed is very small compared with what we are told the full-grown plant should be; it is weak compared with the strength that must be exerted in the accomplishment of the task set for it. When searching for a spot in which to lodge some new arrival, I ask myself if it is not better to have too many students for the rooms than too many rooms for students. We are still crowded, it is true; when, as was the case to-day, two young men came in rather unexpectedly, we had to make up the very last cot in the institution, and the matron is often perplexed to find bedding enough for the newcomers. But all are made welcome, and it is remarkable how soon these new ones catch the spirit of the place, don work suits, and take to the hammer and saw or assume control of the mule team. I own we are getting along with meager facilities, but I do not see but that our family of thirty-five is as happy as any school family I ever saw, and I can not see but that the students are as eager to learn as any I ever taught. Our class rooms are the small, low-ceiled rooms in the farmhouse; and when we gather for chapel, the question of ventilation is a perplexing one, but we look forward to better days when we shall have a chapel built with our own hands, and more commodious class rooms. In the meantime we study and work. The forenoon is devoted to manual work. The men have just finished a four-room cottage which lady students will occupy; they are building a milk room and a small bath house, and they are repairing the barn for the cows, and building a barn for the mules. We are milking about twelve cows, which daily average over a pound of butter apiece, and it is our purpose to increase the size of the herd, as the dairy is our most remunerative department at present. It affords work for a number of students, who in this way pay their school expenses. Class work is conducted in the afternoon, and the chapel service closes the day. The Bible is one of the leading subjects in the school, and it is our constant effort to put into operation the principles of life and education given to the people of God. The school has a definite purpose. That purpose is to train men and women to labor for souls throughout the South. They are to receive a training that will enable them to be self-supporting if necessary. The message to leave the cities, and to combine farm and missionary life as outlined in Sister White’s latest work, “Ministry of Healing,” is a characteristic feature of the school. Several of our number have had considerable experience in canvassing. They thus meet the people, and there are books containing the truth in many homes about here. One young man in canvassing met a woman who had known something of the Sabbath, but who was not a Sabbath-keeper. She now attends our services regularly. Hundreds, and even thousands, of workers are needed in the field upon whose borders we are located. “The Northern element must be brought into connection with the Southern element.” This school is bringing the two elements together, and it offers a place of training to men and women of the North who are called by the Lord to work in and for the South. We have been pleased to receive visits from a number of brethren from the North who contemplate locating in the South. Such are always welcome. We feel confident that the little seed that has been planted in Tennessee will grow, for we are conscious that God is shedding the sunshine of his love upon the place, and is watering it with the dews of heaven.