Our School for Mexicans by J. A. Leland

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 12, 1907

Our School for Mexicans

By J. A. Leland

We have a work here that is just as truly foreign missionary work as though it were located a thousand miles from home. The Mexican people have been kept in dense ignorance for centuries by the Catholic Church, and the rays of light we have penetrate very slowly this pall of darkness. The condition of the people in this country is, in some respects, very much better than in the old country. Their habits of thought are different from ours, invariably. Their customs are also very widely different, and the language offers a barrier that few of our people are able to overcome. Nevertheless we find among them some who are true gold. Many among them are longing for the true light, and do not hesitate to accept it when they see it. A very large per cent of them can not read or write, especially the older ones. The younger generation attend the public schools and learn English, many of them forgetting, or never learning to read, their own tongue. As a result, the language which they speak is a corruption of English and Spanish. The teachers in the public schools, as a rule, do not understand Spanish, and so can not explain the lessons to the children in a way that will enable them to grasp the idea; and as a result they linger long years in the primary grades, and seldom get beyond them. As a rule they consider that a child of fourteen years is too old to attend school, and only a very small per cent of them go to school after that age.

Understanding these difficulties very fully, we saw the need of a school for the Mexican children, where they could get a training that would advance them more rapidly, and prepare them to meet the exigencies of life more intelligently.

Last year we began school with an attendance of sixteen children. The number soon increased to twenty-nine. We had children who had been in attendance at the public schools for five years, and yet were unable to take third-grade work intelligently. They could read in English a few lines, but were wholly unable to understand what they read. And as for reading in their own language, they never attempted it. After one year's work with our good books these same children were able to take a book and read in English and tell immediately in Spanish the meaning, and vice versa. They made good progress in number work and the various branches taken up in the school.

We hold our school in a building altogether unsuitable for such work. The ventilation is very poor, and the light wholly insufficient. There were great spaces in the floor, which rendered it impossible to keep the room warm.

This year we have planned a new schoolhouse, to be used as a church also. The Mexican brethren have pledged enough adobe bricks to make the walls, but we need some help. The building that we have planned will cost three hundred fifty dollars. We have about one hundred dollars, leaving two hundred fifty dollars to be raised.

Our foundation is already laid, and we have the adobe bricks ready to be laid in the walls; but before this can be done, we should have some of the woodwork to put into place.

Now a word about the school and the plan we have adopted. We make a regular charge of one dollar a month for each pupil; but we can not always carry out this plan, as we frequently find parents who have several children of school age, who are unable to pay one dollar a month for each child. Many of them work for the small sum of sixteen dollars a month. These are the problems that we have to contend with, and we invite your attention to them in the hope that you may be able to help us solve them. We have told the parents that if they will pay six dollars in advance, they may have a receipt in full for the year's tuition.

This year we began the school with an attendance of fifteen. Several new ones have come in, and others have promised to come later. The desks are made of boxes that we get at the grocery store. We nail legs to them to suit the height of the pupil, and then take blocks of wood from the wood-pile and make stools for them to sit on. We have three long benches that were used for meetings in a hall at one time; these we also use for seats.

The school is held in a room that is much more unsuitable than the one we had last year, but our last year's schoolhouse was rented, and we could not get it. In the room we have this year there is one door and one window, both on the same side of the room. The hole for the stovepipe is near the door, so it will be very dark when it is so cold as to render

it necessary to close the door. We hope to have sufficient funds to complete the new building before cold weather.

This is just as truly foreign missionary work as any work we can do, and it is a great pity that it has been so long neglected. We should have schools established where we can educate young men and women for the work of spreading this great message to the world, and then send them out from there to countries that speak their own tongue, and avoid the necessity of spending years to learn a foreign language. Let us take hold of this long-neglected work with new energy, and push it forward in the strength of the Lord. Any help will be greatly appreciated. My address is Albuquerque, N. M. J. A. LELAND.