A New Intermediate School by Frederick Griggs

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 7, 1907

A New Intermediate School

By Frederick Griggs

For years the brethren and sisters of the New York Conference have been interested in the education of their children in the message.

This conference has hardly been without one or more schools for the last twenty and more years. At Rome, nearly twenty-five years ago, the conference had in operation a very successful school corresponding to our intermediate schools in the scope of its work. The church at Rome has for years conducted a successful church-school, and there have been a goodly number of substantial church-schools in different churches in the conference since the beginning of the school work at Rome.

Some three years ago the question of the permanent establishment of an intermediate school to do work up to and including the tenth grade began to receive consideration; as the result there has been established at Tunesassa such a school. Since the division of the New York Conference, the Western New York Conference has taken the school under its charge. Tunesassa is a post-office at a little station called Quaker Bridge, on the Pennsylvania Railroad running from Olean, N. Y., to Oil City, Pa. It is only five or six miles from the State line of Pennsylvania, on the Seneca Indian reservation. About two miles southeast of the station the conference some two years ago purchased two hundred acres of good land. This land is just off the reservation. Here has been erected a very substantial brick veneer school building at a cost of about three thousand dollars. The building is three stories in height, above a good basement. The first floor is used for the school-room, and the two floors above for rooms for the pupils, the girls occupying the second floor, and the boys the third. The basement is now used for a kitchen and dining-room.

The general plan for the school contemplates another building, which will be used as dormitory, and in which will be the kitchen and dining-room. A barn will also be built. There is an abundance of soft spring-water, which has a natural flow to within six inches of the peak of the building. There is also a great quantity of wood for fuel—enough

to last for years. The prospects for natural gas are good, as the land lies near or within the gas and oil belt. The land has had the timber cut from it some time in the past, but there is a good second growth, which is already valuable, and is steadily increasing in value. Several acres of land have been cleared, and can be put into crops next spring.

The school was formally opened early in November. Twelve or fifteen pupils are now in attendance. It is taught by Sister Bowen. Her husband, Brother Lynn Bowen, is the business manager of the school. Brother and Sister Bowen were connected with this work in the erection of the building, and the school seems to be prospering well under their management. It is intended to have accommodation for about forty pupils in the school.

I greatly enjoyed a visit recently made to this school, and feel that a good, substantial beginning has been made for what may be a very valuable aid to the cause of truth in the Western New York Conference. There are many boys and girls in this conference who should be in such a school preparing for advanced lines of study and for usefulness in the cause of present truth. In many respects the location and surroundings of the school are ideal. It is away from all city influences, and is surrounded by the everlasting hills. The good water and the pure, invigorating air mark the place as a healthy one. This school should have the hearty, loyal support—which we believe it will have—of the members of the Western New York Conference, in its upbuilding and permanent establishment. FREDERICK GRIGGS.