An Industrial School in Cuba
By M. Bessie DeGraw
ABOUT four years ago the first effort was made to open an industrial school on a self-supporting basis in Cuba. A year and a half later Brother G. F. Holmes, of Wisconsin, after a brief stay at the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, located near Las Minas, on a ten-acre tract of land. Brother Holmes and his wife have had some good experiences as they have worked among their Cuban neighbors, and several of the people have begun to keep the Sabbath. The way finally opened for Brother Holmes to obtain the use of a fifty-acre farm adjoining his property, on which is a comfortable seven-room house. In December, Sister A. F. Burgos, a trained nurse, and a Cuban by birth, joined Brother Holmes and his wife. Brother Charles Franz and his wife, two young people known to some of the Michigan churches, heard the call of Cuba while they were students in the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute. They sailed for Cuba in January last. Last year, also, Mrs. E. C. Gray, of California, Prof. E. A. Sutherland, and Elder E. W. Snyder, superintendent of the Cuban Mission Field, spent some time together planning for this little training-school. These young people go out to their field with no promise of a salary. Writing from Las Minas, Sister Franz says: “We like it here very much, and the prospects for a good school year are encouraging. Our Sabbath-school is small, but we have interesting meetings.” Brother Franz writes: “Sunday, the twenty-second, we had our first faculty meeting. After considering the matter fully, we five decided to put our all and our lives into the work of starting a training-school.” Prof. H. R. Salisbury visited us at Madison on his return from his recent visit to Cuba. While he did not have an opportunity to see the place at Las Minas, he did visit the school of Sister Ida Fisher-Carnahan at San Claudio, and he made an earnest appeal to our students to do a similar work elsewhere in the island. That the Lord is blessing in this effort to send self-supporting workers into Spanish fields, is further shown by the fact that in February four young people, Brother and Sister Howard Loften and Brother and Sister Carl Snow, left Nashville for Honduras, where they will join Brother Herbert Owen in his industrial school at Siguatepeque.