p. 85 | Our English School in India by H. R. Salisbury

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 22, 1914

Our English School in India

By H. R. Salisbury

H. R. SALISBURY

I HAVE just returned to Lucknow from a visit to our English school in the Mussoorie hill station. The school has been in operation three years. The first year it had eleven pupils, last year twenty-two, and this year forty-five. The building is far too small, so that the past year we have rented a building near our own school for the boys, and even then I found the girls' building so crowded that Mrs. Bruce, the head mistress, and several girls were obliged to sleep on the porch for want of room. Next year I fear they will be even more crowded, as many applications are coming in. The school is a great blessing to our missionaries, for they are able to keep their children with them in India and give them a Christian education in a most healthful location.

Mussoorie, where our school is located, is one of the largest hill stations in India where Europeans go during the hot months of the year. Here the children spend the entire hot season in school in the mountains away from the great heat of the plains. The school year is from March to November, so the pupils can spend the winter months on the plains, giving them a delightful climate the year round. I never saw a healthier, more contented company of boys and girls.

On each Sabbath they march in a body with their teachers nearly a mile through the town to our chapel, and people are often heard to remark how well those children, who are all vegetarians, look. Because of this, Mrs. Bruce has had requests from parents not of our faith who wish to send pupils, but with two or three exceptions she has had to refuse on account of lack of room.

Besides the regular subjects taught in the school, we have also classes in Urdu (Hindustani), the lingua franca of India.

INSTRUCTORS AND PUPILS IN OUR ENGLISH SCHOOL AT MUSSOORIE

The teacher of Urdu (the second from the right in the photograph, seated beside the head mistress) is a Mohammedan, Mohammed Bashier Alla Khan, who has taken so great an interest in our school that he has sent his sons to us, knowing that the principles of Christian education enter into all our class work. Even his wife, who, being a Mohammedan woman, was in purdah (veiled) and not allowed to be seen, showed her friendliness by preparing a dinner of an abundance of most excellent food and sending it to us while I was visiting the school. We watch hopefully these signs of friendship, believing they are the beginnings of God's answer to our prayers that many from Islam may be led to accept the Saviour of mankind.

I am glad we have this school, and glad for the prosperity that has attended its work, for it is not the will of God that while we are striving in this land of great spiritual darkness to bring those to Christ who are afar off, we should neglect those who are within our own gates.