Among the Church-Schools in Texas
By Mrs. G. F. Watson
OCTOBER 26 we left our home in KEENE to visit the church-schools and Missionary Volunteer societies at Lone Star and Douglass. At Lone Star we found Brother D. E. McNeil with twenty-two pupils in a small schoolhouse surrounded by many trees. The children, both at school and around the fireplace in the evening, pored over the beautiful stories found in our denominational school-books as if thirsting for true knowledge. November 2, with Brother Crul and his wife, we rode twelve miles to the Douglass school. The discomforts of the sandy road were forgotten in the delights of the shade and autumn colorings of the trees. We found the schoolhouse in a tiny clearing, where the faithful teacher, Miss Ellen Lambeth, had taught practical manual training at recesses and noons, interesting the boys in sawing down trees and splitting them up for stove wood, the girls meanwhile industriously sweeping and dusting the schoolhouse and tidying the playground. There were twenty-five boys and girls in attendance here, three of whom were from families not of our faith. At each place we sold a few copies of the “Church School Manual” and of “Fifty Missionary Stories.” Quite a number of copies of the Morning Watch Calendar were sold, also several of the first books for the Reading Course of 1911. We were glad to find a working Missionary Volunteer society at both places. We are looking forward to definite results from the prayer band. Why not? In Matt. 18:19 is a definite promise where two are agreed in prayer. Each of these societies gladly set apart a certain Sabbath of each month to contribute to the fund for equipping a carpenter’s shop and dress-making-rooms for the academy at KEENE. The warm-hearted cordiality of these dear brethren and sisters makes us long to visit them again.