Among the Southern Schools by Stephen N. Haskell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1911

Among the Southern Schools

By Stephen N. Haskell

On the evening of March 2 we left Oakland, Cal., for Madison, Tenn., and arrived at the junction about three miles distant on the evening of March 6. The next morning a colored man took us over to the school, where we spent about two weeks.

At the present time the school has about twenty small, one-story buildings, all of which were built by the students themselves. In addition to these there is the sanitarium, which has a good patronage, Gotzian Hall, and a school building. The sanitarium will accommodate from twenty to twenty-five patients. All the buildings are neat and attractive; they are built for actual needs, nothing for show. The students and teachers eat at the same table. Other provision is made for the sanitarium patients.

The Madison school is self-supporting, its object being to train men and women to go into the hill country and establish other self-supporting schools. As the result of this effort, over two hundred teachers are now engaged in teaching in the South. According to their plan, teachers who enter a new field will in a short time gather around them a company composed not only of the children who attend the school, but also of the better class of people in the neighborhood, who wish to be taught more advanced methods in agriculture, as well as in spiritual and educational lines.

As a direct result of the work of five of these schools (Madison, Hillcrest, Goodlettsville, Fountain Head, and Sand Mountain), churches with an aggregate membership of one hundred twenty-four have been organized, and two more are about to be organized. Three of the churches named above were established without a cent of expense to the conference.

As a result of the work of the Madison school, there are now twenty-two self-supporting schools in the South and other needy fields. These schools are located in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas, Cuba, and Central America. They have an attendance of from four hundred fifty to five hundred pupils, and this represents coming in contact with at least two thousand persons, many of whom would never hear the message were it not for some such work as this. The training-school gives a practical experience in faith, and in the development of laborers who will go out and work for souls under the most trying circumstances.

The ingenuity of those taking the responsibility of this self-supporting work is often taxed to make ends meet. The funds received from friends in the North, East, and West do not purchase the land and sustain the school, neither does the farming industry, of itself, support it.

On the Madison school farm the workers have fine blooded stock, both horses and cows, which is often sold for fancy prices. At Hillcrest they have rare poultry, the eggs of which are sold in different places, some having been sent even to Washington, D. C. Where these schools are near cities, choice flowers are cultivated, and the bulbs are sold.

None can see the school farm at Madison, and note the improvements made upon it, without recognizing the fact that the Lord has blessed the work in a special manner. The time has now come when the facilities of this school will have to be enlarged. It is fully prepared to train missionary farmers, medical missionaries, and teachers, but it is now planned to give a course of practical field work in canvassing, city missionary work, etc. In view of this need, the workers are planning to do some building during the summer, and this will make it necessary for them to have at least twenty more young men on the place. The school is also in a position to give work to about ten young women of the right stamp.

I gather from the treasurer's report that the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute paid to the students last year the sum of $7,620 for work done in the institution. This money, of course, was used to meet the school expenses of the students.

The yearly expense for the average student in the Madison school is from $100 to $125. The expense of one young man who has been there during the past year amounted to one hundred dollars for eight months. For a young woman for the same length of time it was about sixty dollars. The teachers in the school have drawn from the school only thirteen dollars a month. Out of this they paid back to the school the regular expense for board, rent, and incidentals.

I have before me some extracts of letters written by teachers in different parts of the South. One working in Chestnut Hill writes: “The children who attend our school are very anxious for an education. The carpenter class is so interested that the boys work before school, at recess, and at the noon hour. They hardly wait to eat their dinners. The class at present is making bookcases, sewing-baskets, paper-racks, tables, and other useful articles for their own homes. They have cut and split considerable wood, and the boys helped build our hotbed and cold-frame. The girls are doing excellent work in the sewing class. They are making quilts and rugs, and are learning to make clothes for themselves.”

Those from the North and East and West who have helped these schools will have a rich treasure laid up for them in heaven. No other enterprise among us has turned out so many self-supporting missionaries as this school. We have visited several of these schools, and what we have written has been gathered from statistics and facts that were given us, and which we have seen demonstrated. When we consider that it is only six years since the enterprise started, we can speak in its behalf. It certainly has verified the testimony of the Spirit of God in this self-supporting work. It has demonstrated that God has raised up men and women to contribute to, and help forward the work of, these schools.

It is hoped that there may be at least twenty young men and ten young women who will answer the present call from Madison; also that there will be men and women who will sustain the Hillcrest school, which is doing an excellent work in training colored workers to establish self-supporting schools among that people.

Elder W. R. Burrow, president of the conference in which the Madison school is located, makes the following statement: “In reply to questions regarding the Madison school and the branch schools conducted by Brethren Alden and Mulford, I can say that I have visited these schools, and have watched with interest the work they are doing. The Madison church and the two churches at Goodlettsville and Fountain Head, Tenn., have been built up by them without the cost of a dollar to our conference. We received from them, this last conference year, nearly five hundred dollars in tithe. These churches are in the best of standing in our conferences, and I wish for more help like them.”

Speaking of the children educated in these schools, he says: “It is a pleasure to see boys and girls who have had limited opportunities for an education given the chance these schools offer. They go to school, and are taught without price. It does not seem to me that any one but those who have the last message of God would make such a sacrifice as the teachers in these schools are making. I am glad they are with us.”

We trust that the Lord will continue to prosper this good work, and that many other lights will be kindled throughout the South, to gather out souls for the soon coming of our Saviour.

S. N. HASKELL.