The Training-School in Argentina
By J. W. WESTPHAL
CONSIDERING everything, the most satisfactory year of the Colegio Camerero (the Argentine training-school for workers) closed Nov. 11, 1904. The total enrolment, including those attending the children's department, was forty-one. About twenty-five were members of the missionary training department, some of whom had attended regularly for the last three years. We have been anxious for the time to come when laborers could go out into the different branches of the work from this school. Our hopes are being realized. Four young men who have had more or less training in the school have been granted ministerial licenses. One of these has already had success in bringing souls into the truth. Two of the others have had good experiences in canvassing, and all give promise of becoming successful soul winners. Six were given missionary licenses; one of these has been selected to fit himself to take charge of the printing work when it is begun, another to unite with the office in Buenos Ayres, and also to take part with Elder Town in work in the city, and the rest to engage in the canvassing work. Besides these, several others are already engaged in canvassing without special conference recognition. The farm work has been more profitable than in former years. Besides what has been used in the school, about one hundred dollars' worth of corn was sold. Over one hundred fruit-trees, besides shade trees, have been set out, which are adding to the appearance of the school property. The stock has increased by one horse and two cows, and we have eleven swarms of bees. But little was added to the building, owing to a lack of funds. The debts which resulted from the effects of the cyclone of two years ago were all paid, and we have in pledges about two hundred dollars, and a kiln of twenty-five thousand brick that have been burned on the place. Teachers find themselves greatly hindered in carrying on the work, both in the school building and outside, for want of facilities. The forty acres of land is not sufficient for pasture and cultivation. The machinery and tools are insufficient. There are no reception rooms. One of the teachers has had to share his room with a student, and also use it as a class room. The other rooms were crowded, as many as six students being in one room. There is no bath room; the water must be drawn with a bucket from a well eighty feet deep; there is not one foot of veranda; and there are other less apparent but often more annoying deficiencies. The teachers have therefore had to work18under great disadvantages, and sometimes discouragements. One thousand dollars would not be one cent too much to make the most urgent improvements. But where is it to come from? The receipts on tuition are sufficient to meet the salary of one of the teachers, while the wages of the matron and the kitchen and room expenses have all been met from the garden and dairy, and from payments from the students and teachers. We are greatly rejoiced over the receipt of thirty-four dollars toward the erection of a bath room, and about one hundred and seventy-five dollars as a fund from which to assist by loans worthy young people in our school, from the Union College Young People's Missionary Society. They have the most hearty thanks of all connected with the school, and of all our people in this field. Professors Fulton and Lude have again been chosen as the teachers for the next year, the former as principal, and the latter to have charge of the German Department, with the general oversight of the farm.