The Haskell Home Training School for Missionary Mothers.
The donation recently made by our churches and Sabbath-schools for the Haskell Home has again brought that institution before the people, and doubtless, with the majority of those who have given, the children at the home have been the one, and perhaps the only, feature of the work that has impressed them. Closely connected with the care of the children, which is indeed the object for which the home exists, is another less widely known and understood. While applications by the scores and hundreds come for places in our missionary nurses' training-schools, showing the deservedly wide reputation these schools have, we are sure that the missionary training-school at the Haskell Home is comparatively little known. Why not tell the world about it? we are asked; and in response to this suggestion we will speak of the features of this somewhat unique training-school. Every intelligent mother knows that when a child is clothed and fed, her care for her child is only just begun, and she sets herself to the study of the best methods of educating and training for her little ones, that the characters they are forming may be pure and strong, that their education may be such as to make them useful in constantly widening channels with their advancing years. It costs her hours of prayerful study to know how to overcome the undesirable tendencies in her children, to develop desirable ones, and to guide the development of each child along the lines of its own individuality. Almost the first need felt in the Haskell Home after its doors were opened to the homeless children was that of trained mothers. The feeding and clothing of the family was a comparatively easy task, though even these, with so much variation in the individual physical conditions of the children, demanded much more than haphazard effort, and we found it very difficult to find mothers who could work intelligently and successfully with the children, coming as they did from so many different sources in so many different stages of physical, mental, and moral development. So a course of training was at once organized. This has been added to till at present we have a course covering nearly six hundred hours of class work during the year, with a faculty of instructors well equipped in their lines, instructors of long experience in successful work. It is as easy to instruct a class of moderate size as to teach a small class, once we have the equipment, and it has often been a matter of regret with us that more students were not availing themselves of the excellent course provided. The course contains much that is useful to any intending to engage in missionary work, either in the foreign field or in our large cities; and inasmuch as women, especially those who work as missionaries, usually come more closely in contact with mothers and children than any other class, the training given is an especially valuable preparation for such work. The plan of the instruction is to cover the physical, mental, and moral or spiritual development of the child. Accordingly lessons in physiology and hygiene, practical nursing, practical hydrotherapy, children's diseases, care and feeding of infants, etc., are given, the instructors being members of the faculty of the Nurses' Training-School. Lessons in domestic science and lessons in sewing, both graded, the former including not only general housekeeping, but hygienic cookery, food elements and combinations, and the latter covering a carefully graded course from the first stitches of the little unaccustomed fingers up to the making of simple under-garments and dresses; and lessons in sloyd, paper folding and cutting, basket weaving, and wood sloyd, are given by instructors who have worked with children for years, and who give not simply the hand training, but the ethical lessons which, interwoven with the practical training of children, go far toward building character. Studies in child nature, in the training and moral development of children, character building, and the true purpose and nature of discipline, Bible studies, and the principles of kindergarten training are also given. For those who wish to gain knowledge and experience in church-school work, the home school, conducted by teachers who are in close touch with the most advanced ideas in education among us, affords an excellent opportunity. The kindergarten work, while it includes much of that which is most approved in the methods in the modern kindergarten system, is based on the Bible, thus teaching the children from the very outset the fundamental truths of Christianity, and making them familiar with the Scriptures. Lessons on mission work, home and foreign, as well as on other topics, are also given a place in the course as opportunity offers, the different courses extending from a few weeks to the whole year. Opportunity is afforded at the home to gain a practical experience in the different lines of study under the direction of the instructors and the home workers, and a wider field of usefulness, or even a field of greater need, can scarcely be found while in training. It has been our privilege to have with us, for a longer or shorter time, several who are now doing excellent work in home or foreign fields, and who refer to the help received at the home in terms of warmest appreciation. The children at the home are bright and interesting, and eager for the right associations and instruction; and those who engage in this work are a thousandfold repaid as they see their efforts rewarded by development and progress and a coming closer to the Christ-life of those under their care. Those who feel that they can give a year to the work of the home, will be engaging in God's most noble work, and by the training which they thus receive will be fitted for work in our schools and other institutions. Those best adapted to the work are women from twenty-five to forty years of age, who wish to give themselves to missionary work, who not merely love children as pets, but who have the true motherly spirit, and are free to give themselves to the work. Widowed mothers with one or two young children are sometimes accepted if they are especially adapted to the work, and suitable arrangements can be made for the children; but we often receive applications from mothers whose main purpose is to secure work, and remain here with their children; and although we would gladly make room for all such, we are compelled to limit our class to those who give promise of usefulness, either in the work at the home or elsewhere, as active missionaries. The year's course begins in November, and it is better to begin then, although we may enter at any time. There is still room for several students. If possible, come at once, to be ready for a full year's training. For further information, address the Haskell Home, Battle Creek, Mich.