THE BATTLE CREEK COLLEGE AND THE SOUTHERN WORK.
By J. E. White
It was an era in our work in the South when Professors Sutherland and Magan came to our field and carefully and quite thoroughly investigated its condition, and planned a line of effort which should organize and make efficient its educational interests. The first requisite in this line is properly qualified teachers. Much preparatory work can be done in the Battle Creek College; but as the Southern field is peculiar, the work to be done requires special training and experience. It was therefore decided that the College should establish a teachers’ training-school on the ground, uniting with it actual school work among the same people and under the same conditions which they must meet wherever their future work should be done. This will consist in teaching both day and night schools, giving private instruction in the homes in educational, health, and housekeeping lines, Christian help and medical missionary work, better methods of farming, etc. In this practical work the teachers will have the benefit of the experience of those who have had years of service in the very field where their work is to be done. Under such circumstances more efficiency can be gained in a few weeks than by many months of experience without the training. When the Professors were with us in the South, an effort was made to secure a proper location for such a training-school. Jackson, Miss., was first considered, but the conditions did not seem favorable. Then Calmar was thought to be the proper location, but just as we were preparing to secure a site for this work, the mob violence taught us that this was not the place. It also taught us that we must locate where the people have liberal ideas, and will foster a work of this nature. After careful investigation Port Gibson, about thirty miles below Vicksburg, was found to offer the best opening, as the people are friendly to our work in all its lines, and stand ready to assist us in many ways. The College then raised a small fund and sent Brother Struble and family to the South, and they have been at Port Gibson for a number of months, doing such preparatory work as they can. A fund is being raised to secure a location and equip this training-school, and we hope soon to see it in operation. A few months ago it was decided that the Southern Missionary Society should have a Northern office where its organ, the Gospel Herald, could be published, and where our work could be brought into closer touch with Northern people. It was then that the College threw open its doors, and furnished room for editorial and business office purposes. An unused portion of the basement was fitted up for a printing office, and the Training-School Publishing Association undertook to print the Gospel Herald. This office now has a small cylinder and two job presses, a good supply of job and newspaper type, a best improved wire stitcher, trimming machines, and other appliances which fully equip it for issuing the ADVOCATE and the Herald, and doing such other work as is required by the College and the Southern Missionary Society. The active interest of the College in the Southern work has been a matter of great benefit to the work and an encouragement to the workers.