Self-Supporting Schools in Cuba by Edwin A. Sutherland

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 12, 1910

Self-Supporting Schools in Cuba

By Edwin A. Sutherland

ABOUT four years ago Brethren Calvin Kinsman and Oren Wolcott, with their wives, all students of the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, opened a mission school near Nuevitas, Cuba, on the self-supporting plan.

These four young people pioneered this kind of work in Cuba. They have had many experiences during these four years, some of which have been trying indeed. Many of their hardships were due to conditions which might have been overcome more easily had they been trained in Cuba before attempting the establishment of the school. But the Lord has greatly blessed their efforts, and now Cuba has four mission schools, which are all in a good, healthy condition.

Elder E. W. Snyder, president of the Cuban Mission field, has manifested a deep interest in these schools, and is taking an active part in their establishment and development. He and the teachers on the island have long felt the need of a small training-school in which American teachers can take a brief course upon entering the island. They appealed to the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute to send some one to visit their schools and to help them establish this much-needed training-school. These appeals were read to the faculty of the Madison school, and it was decided that I should visit the island to assist them in this matter. Last January I went to Cuba, accompanied by Mrs. Emma Gray, formerly of California, now business manager of the Madison school. We spent about four weeks in the island, visiting among the schools.

Cuba impressed me most favorably. I had a good opportunity to see the island, as I traveled by rail from the extreme western part to Santiago, which is located in the eastern end of the island. I was surprised to find such great advantages in climate, soil, and cheap land, and such unusual productiveness. With scientific cultivation of the soil Cuba will far surpass California and Florida in producing grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and limes. Its production of bananas, pineapples, sugar-cane, etc., shows what can be done even with land that has been tilled without proper care for several hundred years.

Two conditions exist which have given many a wrong impression of Cuba. The first is the lack of adaptation to Cuban conditions by people who have gone there from the United States. Many of these persons are having experiences similar to those of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Israel was never satisfied with the things God gave them, but constantly longed for the old life in Egypt. Likewise some of the people from the United States, instead of being happy, and instead of feeling thankful for the excellent fruits and vegetables so easily produced in Cuba, reject native foods, and import a large part of their food from the United States in tin cans, and in various other ways make their living expensive and unsatisfactory.

It calls for more money than the average person from the United States can make in Cuba to provide all the Irish potatoes necessary for a family, at a cost of five to eight cents a pound. But they may have other tubers, just as wholesome, for the digging. I found more people wrecking their happiness over Irish potatoes and Elgin creamery butter than over any other one thing. Both of these articles are expensive and hard to obtain, and the valuable elements found in both of them can be obtained from native products with very little trouble or cost.

Missionaries should never go to Cuba for financial gain, and every missionary who would have success must learn the lesson of adaptation. I greatly appreciated learning of the experiences of the teachers in the self-supporting schools in Cuba. I found them in harmony with the idea that they should continually study to make use of the

native resources, and not depend upon articles of diet to which they have been accustomed, but which are a luxury in Cuba.

After visiting these schools, and then meeting many Americans who are dissatisfied, I felt that the success of the missionary work in Cuba will depend largely upon the kind of training given to the new workers at the beginning of their stay in Cuba.

The second supposed difficulty is the lack of proper facilities for transporting native products to the United States markets. There are two reasons for this difficulty. The United States is protecting California and Florida citrus fruit-growers by putting a high tariff on Cuban citrus fruits.

Again, most of the land is held in very large estates. Only about one tenth of it is under cultivation. As these large estates are broken into small farms, better facilities for transportation will be developed. No portion of the South is so far behind in material progress as Cuba. Ten years ago it was unlawful to import a Protestant Bible or to hold a Protestant service. Cubans were forbidden to raise grape-vines or olive trees, by the unjust laws favoring the mother country and the Catholic Church. During the last ten years wonderful progress has been made, and the time is ripe for our people to press into this island to hold up the light of the third angel's message in hundreds of places.

Brother Kinsman is now well established at San Lucia, near Nuevitas. He has about forty acres of land, with a good cottage, and a new schoolhouse in process of building. He intends to take a number of boarding students in connection with his day-school.

Brother Guy Holmes is located near Las Minas. He has twenty acres of land, and sufficient house room to enable him to take in a number of boarding students, besides his day students. Brother Holmes has been very active in distributing papers and tracts and in giving Bible readings. I met six natives who are keeping the Sabbath as a result of his work. Some of them are young men who are anxious for a training to become missionaries.

Brother J. E. Anderson is now located at Las Tunas. He and his wife are conducting a fine school, and are doing much paper and Bible work. They are beginning to see results of their efforts.

Brother and Sister Henry Carnahan are conducting a school at San Claudia. Sister Carnahan also has a private school for Cubans at Cabanas, which she teaches in the afternoon. She has had a long experience in Porto Rico and Cuba, and carries a great burden for the natives.

Elder Snyder showed his deep interest in the work by accompanying us practically all the time in our travels. I had the pleasure of being with Elder U. Bender for several days at Omaja and Santiago. This gave us an opportunity to talk over many things concerning the work in Cuba.

We all felt that a training-school should be established. We are now praying that the Lord will put it into the hearts of the proper ones to undertake this enterprise. The Lord has already sent us a Spanish teacher who has been engaged in self-supporting work for several years, and who is ready to enter the training-school as a self-supporting teacher as soon as it is opened. We feel that the prayers of workers in Cuba and those here have been heard, and Cuba will soon have a training-school where teachers from the United States can receive a special training to fit them for their work among the Spaniards.

God calls for consecrated young men and women to enter Cuba. We wonder who has heard this call and answers, “Here am I.”

E. A. SUTHERLAND.