A CHINESE SCHOOL | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 22.

A CHINESE SCHOOL.

BROTHER WM. COVERT, president of Wisconsin Conference, gives to the Reporter a private letter from Sister Ida Thompson, a missionary in China, from which we take the following interesting sketch:—

I live in a Chinese house, with no modern improvements whatever. There are five rooms down stairs, and four on the second floor. The school occupies the best room on the ground floor, the Chinese teacher one room, one is used as a Chinese reception room, and one for a cook-house.

We have no yard of any sort. The clothes must be dried on the roof. All water must be carried in large wooden buckets on the backs of coolies. The drinking water is carried from the mountains, several miles distant. For this we must pay five cents gold per trip—two pails full. The water for cleaning purposes must be carried from the river. This is cheaper—about twelve trips for five cents gold. But you see we can not say, "As free as water," in this city. There are no waterworks here at all. It makes a lot of trouble to carry in and out all the water used, but there is no remedy here in Canton. I guess you would think it strange to save water in jars, and be careful not to waste any. It seems so to us, also; but daily doing drives the strangeness away.

Our school opened March 17, 1904, with seventeen girls, but has increased to twenty-one, with a promise to admit three more. This is all the room we have at present, and so we have closed our doors to others. Perhaps you know that the custom in Chinese schools is to study aloud as well as to recite aloud. All this goes on in one room at one time. It is rather hard on us to get used to such a racket, but I do not mind it so much now. Sabbath, we had twenty-five at our Chinese Sabbath-school, which began at 10 A. M., and closed at 12 M. They gave good attention to what was said, and did not seem tired when the time was up.

There are some very bright faces in my school. School hours are as follows: 7 to 9, 10 to 12 A. M.; 1 to 4 P. M. I guess, if the little tots at home were pushed off to school as early as this, they would think it strange. You see, they get up, and come without breakfast. At 9 A. M. they return home, and eat their rice and a bit of fish or pork, or perhaps a little green relish. At noon the meal consists of a drink of tea; and many have nothing until 5 P. M., when such a lot of rice as they sit down to would almost frighten a Westerner. As the little girls came into school the first day, many brought ten or twenty cents (Mexican) wrapped in a bright red paper, which they presented to the teacher or to me; also some Chinese cakes and pieces of sugar-cane, about five inches long. There were gifts of gratitude. One may take them, thank the donor, and then return one-half or all, as he chooses; or keep all, and be considered polite.