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 BV 2766 .P77 U53 1921 
 Eastman, Fred, 1886- 
 Unfinished business of the 
 Presbyterian church in 
 
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 CI 
 
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 s 
 
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 M 
 
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 FRED EASTMAN 
 
 Prepared Under the Direction of 
 
 The Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church 
 
 in the u. s. a. 
 
 The Woman's Board of Home Missions 
 
 The Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work 
 
 The Board of Missions for Freedmen 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 
 1921 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
 FRED EASTMAN 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . o . 7 
 
 I. IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS ...... 13 
 
 II. AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE 41 
 
 (a) MEXICANS IN THE UNITED STATES . . , o . , 44 
 
 (b) PORTO RICANS , , 58 
 
 (c) CUBANS 72 
 
 m. IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 79 
 
 IV. IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 105 
 
 V. AMONG ALASKANS AND INDIANS 127 
 
 (a) ALASKANS 130 
 
 (b) INDIANS 142 
 
 VI. THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 153 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 It is a good thing for each denomination to seek to 
 determine as clearly as it can its own distinctive duty. 
 Unless it does this it is not in a position to plan its proper 
 courses of action or to draw out and use the resources of 
 its membership. It is in no presumptuous or vaunting 
 spirit that the different groups of Christians in our country 
 to-day are seeking thus to ascertain each its own rightful 
 share in the one great task. They are working together 
 in more united and trustful relations than ever before and 
 their work both separately and together will be far more 
 effective by reason of their sure discernment of their own 
 respective obligations. 
 
 Mr. Eastman seeks in this little volume to help Presby- 
 terians to realize what their part is or ought to be in some 
 of the great tasks before the Christian forces in America. 
 He has been obliged, of necessity, to select a few of these 
 tasks and to present each of them in as suggestive a way 
 as possible. And the reader will surely agree that he has 
 done his work exceedingly well. 
 
 Some people are inspired to greater effort by the success 
 of the work which they have already done. Others are 
 stirred more by the thought not of the "petty done" but of 
 the "undone vast." They agree with Browning that " 'Tis 
 not what man does that exalts him, but what man would 
 do." Mr. Eastman has wisely set forth both the work done 
 and the work still to be done. He has told concrete and 
 moving stories of men and women and the deeds they have 
 wrought by God's blessing in ministering to human need, 
 
 S 
 
6 FOREWORD 
 
 in creating Christian faith and character, and in making 
 our country more nearly a Christian land. And he has 
 also drawn the broad and all too dark picture of the vast 
 needs still unmet which call for the lives of young men 
 and young women and for the prayer and support of the 
 whole Church. 
 
 How can these be withheld in the face of such evidence 
 of the rich lucrativeness of the investments of life and 
 wealth in that great service of America and of the world? 
 For while this volume deals only with the unfinished business 
 of the Church at home, great issues for all the world hang 
 upon the Church's attitude to that business. We can give 
 only what we have. And we ought to do our whole duty in 
 America both for America's sake and for the sake of the 
 world. 
 
 That is the Church's business but it is more than that. 
 It is God's. And there is a word of our Lord's wholly 
 relevant with regard to it: "Knew ye not that I must be 
 about my Father's business?" May we all be set more dili- 
 gently to doing that business by the study of this book. 
 
 Robert E. Speer 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Presbyterian Church shares with all other denomi- 
 nations the common purpose of making this world Christian. 
 We are all trying to make Christ's law of love and service 
 the controlling law of human life. We are all endeavoring 
 to convert the spirit of suspicion into a spirit of faith; 
 the spirit of greed into a spirit of giving; the spirit of 
 hatred into a spirit of love; the spirit of selfishness into a 
 spirit of service. We are all working for the Kingdom of 
 God, the time when men shall live together as brothers in 
 justice, righteousness, and friendship. 
 
 In this task there is a differentiation of labor. Each de- 
 nomination stresses those particular phases of the general 
 task for which its history, traditions, and point of view 
 have fitted it. JHistorically the Presbyterian Church has 
 stressed especially religious and political freedom, education, 
 and Christian service. To be sure we have no monopoly on 
 these ideals. We do not want monopoly. On the contrary 
 we have been trying to get them universally accepted. Get- 
 ting them universally accepted is part of the unfinished 
 business of our ChurchTA 
 
 The reason for our striving for religious and political 
 freedom, education, and service, is deep-rooted in our theol- 
 ogy. You cannot plant in the human heart the great concep- 
 tion of a sovereign God, indwelling in the human soul, with- 
 out that idea some day flowering in a reverence for human 
 personality. And sooner or later reverence for human per- 
 sonality bears fruit in practical efforts for freedom, edu- 
 cation, and service; for freedom, education, and service are 
 necessary for the full development of the divine possibili- 
 ties in human personality. 
 
 That is why the Presbyterian Church has always made 
 evangelism — by which we mean getting the human soul 
 
 7 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 into fellowship with God — fundamental in all its work. In 
 this we are following the method of Jesus. He called his 
 disciples one by one into fellowship with God. Once they 
 were in that fellowship they grew speedily out of littleness 
 into greatness; out of ignorance into understanding; out 
 of bondage into freedom. They in turn planted the seed 
 of this great conception in the minds of others and, like a 
 sapling that will not be confined, it forced its way into 
 Jewish morality, then into Greek philosophy, then into the 
 Roman Empire, and so on through the centuries. Those 
 great experiments in human liberty, the Swiss and Dutch 
 Republics, the Commonwealth of England, and the United 
 States of America are all products of that seed. The best 
 of our literature and art, our music and our drama, our 
 education and our culture, sprang from the same source. ■ 
 
 When the conception of a sovereign God dwelling in 
 the human soul took root in the minds of our Presbyterian 
 forefathers it had a similar growth and bore similar fruit. 
 Consider those fruits in America alone. 
 
 We were the first organized body on American soil to pro- 
 pound the doctrine of a free Church and a free State. 
 In 1729, thirty-seven years before the signing of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the Presbyterian Church declared 
 for a separation of Church and State. In 1765 the Presby- 
 terians and the Congregationalists cooperated in resisting 
 a plan to set up in the colonies an Episcopal establishment 
 and to tax "dissenters" for its maintenance. The year 
 before, when political feeling was running high, the Gen- 
 eral Synod was courageous enough to send out a pastoral 
 letter to all Presbyterians urging their loyal support to the 
 Continental Congress. At the same time a convention in 
 North Carolina composed of delegates who were mainly 
 Presbyterians issued the famous Mecklenburg Declaration 
 of Independence preceding the action of the Colonial Con- 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 gress by more than a year. Our Church "taught, practiced, 
 and maintained in fullness, first in this land, that form of 
 i government in accordance with which this Republic was or- 
 ganized. The historian Bancroft says: "The Revolution 
 of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presby- 
 terian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the prin- 
 ciples which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted 
 in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, 
 the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Pres- 
 [ byterians of Ulster.' " ^ 
 
 As for education, we are a college-building, rather than a 
 cathedral-building. Church. The impulse toward education 
 is our historical heritage. John Knox could not conceive of 
 churches apart from schools. His enthusiasm for education 
 was brought to this country by the Scotch and Scotch-Irish, 
 who established our Church here, and that enthusiasm has 
 characterized it ever since. For more than a hundred and 
 fifty years the normal requirement for admission to the 
 ministry has included diplomas representing both classical 
 and theological training. No denomination has maintained 
 a higher standard in this line. If our ideal for the ministry 
 has been high, our ideal for the laity has been equally high. 
 The Presbyterian Church has established 1 2 theological sem- 
 inaries, 63 colleges and academies, and a total of 2036 
 schools of all kinds in 16 countries. 
 
 There is no particular reason why Christian service should 
 be spoken of as something distinct from political and re- 
 ligious freedom and education, for fostering such ideals 
 is the greatest kind of service. But in practice we have 
 come to use the term "service" more in the sense of lend- 
 ing a helping hand to less favored neighbors at home and 
 abroad. Caring for the sick, the distressed, the broken: 
 
 1 Cf. Roberts, A Brief History of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
lo INTRODUCTION 
 
 providing opportunities of education; affording voca- 
 tional training and culture for those who would not other- 
 wise have them; bringing the dynamic of true religion into 
 lives that are wasting away for want of it — these are forms 
 of service that the Presbyterian Church has always counted 
 itself under divine orders to carry on. Our first missionary 
 was appointed in 1775. He was Rev. Samuel Davies sent 
 by the Hanover Presbytery to Georgia. He soon became 
 known as the champion of freedom, the founder of churches, 
 and the friend of learning. Twelve years later we find a 
 general missionary collection being ordered throughout all 
 Presbyterian churches. Last year our 77 hospitals and 98 
 dispensaries at home and abroad treated 350,284 patients. 
 We maintained too nearly 4000 home and foreign mis- 
 sionaries. 
 
 Now these efforts and the great religious conceptions out 
 of which they grew, are all very good. We take what 
 Roosevelt called a "decent pride" in them. But Presby- 
 terians of this generation cannot get into heaven or get 
 heaven into men on the strength of our forefathers' efforts. 
 We must work out our own salvation. There is a mass 
 of unfinished business before us which wejnust attend to if 
 we are to be worthy sons of worthy sires. ' In the chapters 
 that follow the author has endeavored to outline this un- 
 finished business in America. He has treated it especially 
 in relation to the practical problems and the specific groups 
 among which the Church is working. These specific groups 
 include among others the 3,000,000 Southern mountaineers, 
 13,000,000 foreign born, 11,000,000 Negroes,^ 3,000,000 
 Latin Americans, 1,750,000 Mexicans, 1,500,000 migrant 
 laborers, 334,000 Indians, 54,000 Alaskans, and 500,000 
 Mormons. 
 
 1 The unfinished task among the Negroes is barely mentioned in 
 this book because it is to be given a whole volume to itself in the 
 plan of study for the succeeding year. 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 In dealing with our responsibilities to these groups, let 
 us keep constantly before us our historic ideals of religious 
 and political freedom, education, and Christian service. 
 More important yet, let us bear in mind that these great 
 
 I ideals are the product of such religious conceptions as 
 our faith in a sovereign God, dwelling in the human soul. 
 
 fundamental in all our unfinished business, therefore, is 
 evangelism, or getting individuals into fellowship with God. 
 Let us state this here at the beginning in no uncertain terms. 
 If the Presbyterian Church were to forget its history and be- 
 come so blind as not to see the religious roots of its passion 
 for freedom, its desire for education, and its devotion to 
 human service, and were to set about working for these 
 things simply through laws and movements whose object is 
 to change social environment, it would be a useful institu- 
 tion, but it would cease to be a Christian Church. As a 
 Christian Church we hold that the dynamic of social and 
 political progress is religion and the most effective method 
 of changing environment is through the individual, and 
 the most powerful method of changing the individual is to 
 get him into fellowship with GodP; 
 
 If any further proof of the fundamental necessity of evan- 
 gelism is needed it lies in the fact that more than sixty per 
 cent of the people of America are not identified with any 
 Christian Church, either Protestant or Catholic, and who 
 shall say how many of those who are nominal members 
 of the Church are still strangers to God! 
 
 In each chapter the author has sought to outline briefly 
 the whole task, to describe in some detail one or two specific 
 pieces of work the Church is conducting through its mis- 
 sionaries in that particular field, and finally to sum up the 
 task that remains. In no case has he tried to catalogue 
 all the various projects of the various mission projects of 
 the various Boards and agencies. Any such attempt would 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 produce an encyclopedia and would be a weariness to the 
 flesh. It is better to have a dozen clear pictures that show 
 the spirit and method of the work, than a hundred accounts 
 that would of necessity be sketchy. The author has as- 
 sumed also that the reader is interested not so much in the 
 particular Board or agency that is doing a piece of work 
 as in the task itself. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to Mrs. M. A. 
 Gildersleeve, Miss Mabel M. Sheibley, Dr. John A. Marquis, 
 Mr. B. Carter Millikin, Mr. John M. Somerndike, Dr. 
 John M. Gaston, and Rev. John Bailey Kelly, for reading 
 the manuscript and for their friendly counsel and criticism. 
 Mrs. Gildersleeve and Miss Sheibley also supplied informa- 
 tion on many missionary projects. To Mr. Somerndike the 
 writer is further indebted for much material on the work 
 of colporteurs and the unfinished task of the Church in 
 religious education. Thanks are also due to Mr. Charles 
 A. Thomson, whose excellent report of the camp on Cata- 
 lina Island was the basis of part of the chapter on the 
 Mexican work; to Dr. Edmund deS. Brunner for much 
 material on rural surveys; to Rev. Kenneth IMiller, Rev. 
 Robert W. Anthony, W. P. Fulton, D.D., Rev. W. C. 
 McGarvey, the late George W. Montgomery, D.D., Rev. 
 James J. Coale, Charles L. Zorbaugh, D.D., William T. 
 Jaquess, D.D., Rev. W. Clyde Smith, and Rev. Robert S. 
 Donaldson for information concerning the work of their 
 respective church extension organizations. 
 
 And last but not least, the writer expresses his humble 
 gratitude to his wife who kept the babies quiet while he 
 wrote. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 
 
SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 0£ the Field 
 
 The mountain section stretches along the southern 
 portion of the Appalachian Mountains and extends 
 into northern Georgia and Alabama, embracing a re- 
 gion of two or three million acres. In the Southern 
 Mountains the people live for the most part by hunt- 
 ing, fishing, and growing such corn and vegetables as 
 are absolutely needed. This region is rich in timber 
 and mineral deposits. The chief occupations are agri- 
 culture, logging, and until recently, distilling. 
 
 The main features of the problem in this section 
 are: isolation, illiteracy, and arrested development. 
 Housing and general living conditions are not good 
 and result in the widespread prevalence of disease. 
 There are few schools and churches, little knowledge 
 of what goes on in the outside world, and small inter- 
 est either in local or national politics. . 
 
 Most of the preaching is now done by voluntary 
 pastors, of little education and training, with a great 
 but almost superstitious belief in God. Large por- 
 tions of this country have no religious services of any 
 kind. 
 
 American Volume — Interchurch Survey, 
 
SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board of Home Missions 
 ten boarding schools and fifteen community stations 
 have been maintained. The boarding schools are lo- 
 cated at Mount Vernon, Kentucky; Harriman, Ten- 
 nessee; Colcord, West Virginia; four at lAsheville, 
 one at Concord and two at Hot Springs, North Caro- 
 lina. These schools employ ninety commissioned 
 workers and enroll 883 boys and girls with an average 
 attendance of 660 per day. 
 
 The community stations are located at Cortland, 
 Smith, Traveler's Rest, Garrard and Woonton, Ken- 
 tucky; Sevierville, Flag Pond, and two at Sneedville, 
 Tennessee; Cabell, Dorothy, Dry Creek, and Mont- 
 coal, West Virginia; and Osage Iron Works and Proc- 
 tor, Missouri. Twenty-eight workers are engaged in 
 these fifteen stations. Last year there were 424 stu- 
 dents enrolled in special classes of an educational 
 nature. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions, the Presby- 
 terian Church is rendering a ministry of health, edu- 
 cation, and evangelism, employing eighteen ministers, 
 seventeen teachers, two physicians, five nurses, and 
 ten community workers. A hospital and industrial 
 center is being developed at White Rock, North Caro- 
 lina; schools at Alpine and Jewett, Tennessee, and at 
 Burnsville, North Carolina; a church and community 
 center work at Vardy, Tennessee, and at Kingston, 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Good work — but only a drop in the bucket when 
 we consider that more than 3,000,000 human beings are 
 to be reached. 
 
UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Chapter I 
 IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 A Story of the Laurel Country. "The doctor's going 
 is Hke the stopping of running water." It was a moun- 
 tain woman's tribute to Dr. George H. Packard when 
 after seven years of unremitting toil in the Laurel country 
 of western North Carolina he left to take a rest and regain 
 his health. Another of his mountain friends, a man, put 
 it this way, "I'd be satisfied if the doctor would just fly 
 over here once a week in an airplane and wave his hand." 
 
 Seven years before, he had come into the community when 
 there was neither railroad nor good road, nor doctor, nor 
 nurse, nor newspaper, nor preacher within a radius of 
 eighteen miles. He had met suspicion and prejudice and 
 hostility, and no wonder! for most of those who had come 
 into the community from the outside world had merely 
 come to stare, and then had gone away to laugh at the 
 ways of the mountain people. Somehow the doctor had 
 overcome the suspicion and prejudice and hostility, and now 
 after seven years' work he was leaving behind him a thor- 
 oughly equipped hospital, an able associate doctor, a nurse, 
 and some hundreds of friends that would have gladly shared 
 their all with him. 
 
 But, after all, this story doesn't begin with the doctor's 
 coming. In fact it is difficult to find just where it does 
 begin. Our Presbyterian faith tells us that it all began 
 
 i6 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 17 
 
 in the heart of God, but we are curious enough to want 
 to know more about the human beings through whom he 
 worked. When you talk to the doctor he tells you of his 
 capable wife, and of Miss Frances L. Goodrich and Miss 
 Fish, two brave women who labored here for eighteen years 
 before he came. And he tells you of the late Mr. Campbell 
 of the Russell Sage Foundation and of Dr. Warren H. 
 Wilson of the Board of Home Missions. All these he says 
 were in the conspiracy. Ask of them and you are told that 
 Miss Florence Stephenson, formerly head of the Asheville 
 Home School of the Woman's Home Board, was respon- 
 sible for enlisting them. If you trace the thing back from 
 the Board records in New York you reach ultimately the 
 same answer — Miss Stephenson. You find that in 1886 
 Rev. and Mrs. Pease gave some property in the suburbs 
 of Asheville for home mission purposes and here a little 
 later was started the first Industrial School, with Miss 
 Stephenson as principal. A young woman of large vision, 
 big heart, and great executive ability, she seems to have 
 been a moving spirit in nearly every good work in that 
 region for the last thirty years. At the time of this writing 
 she is in Alaska and unreachable. It's just as well for it 
 seems to be fatal to talk to her on this subject. Before she 
 is through with you she has signed you up to spend the 
 rest of your days in some mountain community forty miles 
 from a railroad, and you are thanking her for the privilege. 
 That is what happened to Miss Goodrich about twenty- 
 five years ago. She visited Miss Stephenson's school in 
 Asheville, and a few months later she accepted a life sen- 
 tence and seemed to be happy about it. Miss Goodrich 
 ha;d had the training of a Presbyterian manse, college, art 
 schools, travel in America and Europe, and she put it all 
 into her work in the Southern Mountains so gladly and 
 effectively for the next twenty-five years that she is known 
 
i8 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 and loved to-day throughout that mountain region as 
 "the little bishop of Laurel.'* 
 
 What was her work? She began by going into a moun- 
 tain community where the people had been shut away from 
 the opportunities that the rest of us have had, opportunities 
 for proper schooling, wholesome social life, books, travel, 
 and even church. It had always been difficult to get thor- 
 oughly trained teachers to go into such communities, be- 
 cause they had no suitable place to live, the salary was 
 meager, and usually the school term was only a few weeks. 
 Often the total school appropriation from the school dis- 
 trict was under $50.00 for the entire year. Miss Good- 
 rich's first aim was to provide a home for a teacher. She 
 would secure or build some little cottage where the teacher 
 would be comfortable. She would live in that house with 
 the teacher, be a companion to her, and help her in the 
 school when needed, and gradually persuade the community 
 round about to better the school, provide more money for 
 it, and lengthen the school term to eight months. She took 
 one community at a time and stayed \>y it until the school 
 was well on the way to standard and the people ready to 
 go on with it. Then she would secure a capable woman 
 community worker to take her place with the teacher and 
 she would move on to the next community. Always she 
 chose her next place with care. She would never duplicate 
 the work of any other missionary, or enter a field possessed 
 by some other denomination. Thus it was that she estab- 
 lished her work at Rice's Cove, Allanstand, Alleghany, Big 
 Laurel, Carmen, Revere, and White Rock. 
 
 Right here should be set down the record of a "perfect 
 cycle" — a long-headed piece of statesmanship. Beginning 
 with a school that was held three or four weeks a year and 
 taught usually by a mountain man whose own education was 
 very deficient — sometimes he could not teach writing be- 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 19 
 
 cause he could not write himself — Miss Goodrich increased 
 the length of the school term, provided a capable teacher, 
 and supplemented the school fund with as much money as 
 was necessary to pay a good teacher for six or eight months. 
 The teacher and the community worker watched each de- 
 veloping child. The more promising children were en- 
 couraged to complete eight grades and then to go on to 
 Asheville Home School where they were given a four-year 
 course fitting them to go back into their mountain communi- 
 ties as teachers taking the places of the teachers Miss 
 Goodrich had brought in from the outside. Thus the 
 cycle was completed. The school was again taught by 
 one of its own community but this time by an educated 
 girl and for a period of eight months instead of a few 
 weeks. 
 
 Where did Miss Goodrich get the money? For the most 
 part she begged it. She begged from her personal friends 
 and from her father's congregation in Cleveland. 
 
 But she was not content to beg all her money from the 
 outside. The mountaineers themselves had practically no 
 money, but this did not daunt her. She set to work on a 
 plan by which they could earn money. The consummation 
 of this plan was the formation of the Allanstand Cottage 
 Industries, manufacturing rugs, table runners, baskets, and 
 so forth. The grandmothers of the mountain women had 
 developed these arts to a high degree but they had been 
 allowed to fall into disuse, partly from lack of materials 
 and partly from lack of market. Miss Goodrich began by 
 providing materials and then offering herself to take charge 
 of the marketing. The old grandmothers' looms were re- 
 stored, repaired, and put to work. The old patterns were re- 
 vived. When a sufficient number of quilts, baskets, and 
 rugs were finished, Miss Goodrich offered them for sale in 
 
20 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Asheville and in New York. The sale was difficult at first 
 but when she put into the hands of the mountain women 
 who had made the articles, the money which she had re- 
 ceived from them, their gratitude encouraged her to go on. 
 Last year she sold $12,000 worth of these products. This 
 was bringing into the community money which could 
 be used for giving the children better education and 
 for purchasing those bits pf the outside world for which the 
 mountain women were hungering. 
 
 Many stories have been told about the southern moun- 
 taineers and their ways. Miss Goodrich was warned when 
 she went into the mountains that she should never go alone. 
 She must always have some one with her to protect her. 
 Yet she always went alone and never had any protection 
 except the companionship of some other woman. In twenty- 
 five years she has never been insulted. One night two 
 drunken men drove up to her little cabin where she and a 
 community worker were living. The men demanded food 
 and lodging. Stepping out on the little stoop Miss Good- 
 rich faced them and spoke quietly, "We are just women 
 alone here," she said. The men with hats off apologized 
 for troubling them and rode away. 
 
 Building up schools and starting industries would be 
 enough to keep an ordinary woman busy, but Miss Good- 
 rich and her community workers were not ordinary women 
 and they were called upon for many other kinds of com- 
 munity service. Since there was no doctor they were often 
 called upon to help cure the sick, to pull teeth, to "lay out" 
 the dead. From a famous surgeon in Asheville, Miss Good- 
 rich secured six vials of the more common medicines along 
 with careful instruction how to use them. No one knew 
 better than she that this sort of treatment was only a stop- 
 gap, and gradually the conviction grew upon her that some- 
 how she must arrange to have a real doctor come to live 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 21 
 
 among the mountain people to render them the medical 
 service they so much needed. 
 
 One day a baby died — a baby that might have lived 
 had there been a doctor to minister to it. Thereupon Miss 
 Goodrich applied to Mr. Campbell, Russell Sage Foundation 
 Director of Southern Mountain work, to find her a doctor 
 who would be willing to go down and live among the moun- 
 taineers. 
 
 And here the story leaves the Southern Mountains and 
 follows Mr. Campbell to Medford, Massachusetts, and to 
 the private hospital of Dr. George H. Packard. Dr. Packard 
 had just lost his only child. The loss had been almost 
 more than he could bear and he went away with a heavy 
 heart about the practice in which he had been happy for 
 sixteen years. More and more after his baby died he was 
 interested in children. When Mr. Campbell's wife was about 
 to bring into the world her first-born, Mr. Campbell took 
 her to Dr. Packard's private hospital, and there it was that 
 as acquaintance ripened into friendship Mr. Campbell pre- 
 sented to Dr. Packard the needs of the Southern Mountains 
 and especially of the Laurel country. It was there that he 
 told Dr. Packard of the baby that had died because no 
 doctor was available. 
 
 Dr. Packard listened and was moved. He was willing 
 to go down and take a look at the country. Mr. Campbell 
 lost no time in arranging it. It was late in October, and 
 amid sleet, rain, and mud when the visit was made. For 
 ten days Dr. Packard and his wife plodded through the mud. 
 Finally on their way back to the nearest railroad station 
 he turned to Mrs. Packard. "Well, dear, would you be 
 willing to tackle the job under these conditions?" Mrs. 
 Packard had been a missionary in China and had lived 
 through the Boxer uprising and her answer came quickly, 
 "I am willing to come back if I ever live to get out." So it 
 
22 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 came about that Dr. Packard and Mrs. Packard, seven 
 years ago, left a successful practice and a private hospital 
 in Medford, Massachusetts, and bringing all they had in 
 the world — character and training, instruments and furni- 
 ture — invested all in the lives of the men and women 
 and children of Laurel Country. 
 
 Consider the difficulties the doctor faced. There was 
 no railroad less than i8 miles distant. The only highways 
 were mountain trails, for long periods impassable except on 
 horseback. Most of the cabins were located along creeks 
 in the mountains far removed from road or telephone or any 
 connection whatever with the outside world. The average 
 mountain home had but one or two rooms, and was without 
 rug or carpet or furniture except a few homemade chairs. 
 Pigs and chickens as well as cats and dogs had the freedom 
 of the house. Patent medicines were considered trust- 
 worthy. All children were brought into the world by mid- 
 wives. The only doctor the people had ever known had sold 
 medicine at twenty-five cents a bottle and sometimes the 
 medicine was a drink of whisky. The nearest hospital was 
 in Asheville, fifty-two miles away, and so inaccessible was it 
 because of the roads, that it might as well have been a 
 thousand miles away. 
 
 Moreover folks were not likely to send for the doctor 
 until their case had become more or less serious, and they 
 had exhausted the traditional methods of treatment. It was 
 in these very traditional methods that the doctor found one 
 of his chief difficulties. Turpentine was regarded as a 
 cure-all and had been applied in many cases where it did 
 more harm than good. Called to treat a severely burned 
 arm the doctor would likely find that a "remedy" had 
 already been applied, the "remedy" consisting of a coating 
 of molasses and soot. This, of course, the doctor had to 
 remove before he could begin any constructive work on 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 23 
 
 the wound. Often he found severe cuts filled with lime or 
 soot, "to stop the flow of blood." 
 
 Never was there any privacy in treating patients. When 
 a man or a woman fell ill and the doctor was finally called, 
 he found upon his arrival that the house was filled with 
 neighbors who observed his every move with intense interest. 
 ''Watch him! Watch him!" passed in whispers around the 
 circle and the doctor's every act was performed amid a 
 "cloud of witnesses." At first he was regarded with sus- 
 picion. Something was wrong, folks felt, with a doctor 
 who would come into that remote section. Mountain 
 children scampered into the brush at his approach. For a 
 long time some of the older folk tried to catch him in a lie. 
 But his modesty and sincerity disarmed the suspicion and 
 when they discovered that the doctor was a religious man 
 and occasionally prayed over cases that he felt were beyond 
 his normal skill, they began to have faith in him. For 
 the mountain people, whatever their deliquencies, are re- 
 ligious. The Bible is their one book. It was on the common 
 ground of religion that they met and understood the 
 doctor. And by and by they began to apply to him a high 
 tribute: "He's common," by which they meant that he was 
 democratic and they had taken him into their hearts. 
 
 The doctor's first case was a bullet wound which had been 
 received at a wedding celebration. In order to show their 
 good will a number of neighbors had gathered in front of 
 the cabin of the bride and groom and were dancing around 
 shooting revolvers into the air and into the ground. One 
 shot entered the leg of a mountain man and the doctor was 
 called to treat him. It was difficult but the doctor probed 
 for the bullet and found it; then he carefully bound up 
 the wound and instructing the patient in its care, went away. 
 When he called again he was told that the wound was not 
 healing properly because it had not discharged any pus. 
 
24 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 The discharge of pus had been so inevitable in the local 
 treatment of bullet wounds that it was regarded as essential 
 to healing. 
 
 The doctor's second case was that of a child of the same 
 family. The child was afflicted with membraneous croup in 
 an advanced stage. It was a most serious case, but the 
 doctor took special interest in saving the lives of children, 
 so for three days and three nights he stayed with the child 
 and saw it through to safety. 
 
 His third case aroused the interest of the community for 
 many miles around. It was appendicitis and the victim was 
 Jamison Tweed, a man of seventy years and very large. 
 But he was an old soldier and had no more than the average 
 human being's fear of the surgeon's knife. So in a little 
 frame house next the old post office he consented to be 
 stretched out upon a table while a preacher administered 
 ether and the neighbors gathered in a crowd to watch a 
 surgical operation that few, if any, believed could possibly 
 be successful. But in spite of all the handicaps the operation 
 was successful and Jamison Tweed is to-day sitting on his 
 vine-covered porch telling stories of the Civil War and call- 
 ing a friendly word to passers-by. 
 
 It was not human ills alone that the doctor was called to 
 treat. Sickness was sickness whether in man or animal, 
 and a doctor's business was to heal the sick. So he was 
 called upon for all kinds of veterinary work. Not an easy 
 case was that of a horse which had cut its throat on a 
 barbed-wire fence. In order to stop the flow of blood the 
 owner had filled a gunny sack with manure and placed it 
 upon the wound. 
 
 As the fame of the doctor's skill spread throughout the 
 Laurel country he began to be called upon more and more. 
 Day and night his faithful horse could be seen plodding 
 along the trails through heat or rain or snow. And every call 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 25 
 
 now meant not one case but several, for when the doctor's 
 horse was seen in a given neighborhood the news passed 
 from cabin to cabin and from creek to creek, so that upon 
 his return trip the doctor would find a number of patients 
 waiting along his homeward trail. To facilitate the work 
 in the several communities the doctor began to use the com- 
 munity houses Miss Goodrich had established. At each of 
 these he held a clinic, usually once a week, and to these 
 clinics the neighbors brought their sick. Each clinic aver- 
 aged from five to fifteen persons treated, and the cases 
 ran the whole range of general practice and surgery. He 
 pulled teeth and mended broken bones; he extracted bullets 
 and allayed fevers. And always he educated, giving friendly 
 counsel about the care of children and the cooking of food, 
 the value of sanitation and the virtue of right living. 
 
 As his practice grew a nurse was sent to help him. Miss 
 Mabel Rich, who had been in Red Cross service in Russia. 
 We cannot do justice to Miss Rich in this chapter 
 but some day her story will be written and it will be a story 
 of courage, devotion, and service worthy of the highest 
 traditions of American womanhood. And the other nurses 
 who followed later, who left better pay in the cities, and 
 homes of refinement to give their youth and training to the 
 service of those who needed them here in the mountains — 
 Miss Harrington and Miss Gardner — what shall be said of 
 them? There is nothing that can be said that will add one 
 whit to their glory. But there is a line in the great Book 
 that describes them: They that do "such things make it 
 manifest that they are seeking a country of their own 
 wherefore . . . God is not ashamed of them to be called 
 their God." 
 
 Five years have passed. There on the side of a mountain, 
 just over the old post office where the first school was 
 conducted and where Jamison Tweed parted with his ap- 
 
26 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 pendix, stands a new building. It is the Laurel Hospital 
 and it is the fruit of the labor of Miss Goodrich and Dr. 
 Packard and the teachers and community workers and 
 nurses who have been putting their lives into this country. 
 It cost $30,000 and most of this amount Miss Goodrich 
 begged. The local contractors and the sawmill owners 
 gave generously of their time and product. The mountain 
 people themselves raised a fund of $700 — not an insig- 
 nificant amount considering the scarcity of money in the 
 mountains — to help to pay for a water main of a mile 
 of pipe from a spring on top the mountain into the hos- 
 pital. The building was planned on the unit plan largely 
 by Mrs. Packard herself. She knew hers would be the 
 task of housekeeper and matron so she spared no pains 
 in seeing to it that the hospital was modern in every con- 
 venience, that closets were ample and rightly located, that 
 steps would be saved wherever possible. Operating room, 
 consulting room, physicians' apartments, nurses' apart- 
 ment, kitchen, and dining room — all are up-to-date in 
 design and appointment. 
 
 And there in a line winding up the steps to the porch are 
 some fifty or sixty children waiting their turn to have their 
 weights recorded by Dr. Packard. For he proposes to 
 keep an eye on every child in order that he may detect 
 incipient diseases and prevent them from getting serious. 
 And these are the children who when the doctor first came to 
 the Laurel Country scampered into the bushes like fright- 
 ened rabbits when they met him upon the road. 
 
 And the patients — what of them? Miss Goodrich writes 
 of the first ones: 
 
 The hospital, all unprepared, had its first patient thrust 
 upon it. One day in May shots were heard close by in 
 the hollow, and then cries, and more shots and more. Soon 
 a man was brought up to the hospital doors, filled from neck 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 27 
 
 to toe literally, with squirrel shot. It was a quarrel be- 
 tween brothers over the trespassing of a horse in a wheat 
 field. The victim had refrained from shooting back, though 
 he had his gun, because their mother had run in between 
 them. 
 
 In the hospital the water system was unfinished, the fur- 
 nishings and equipment meager, and the nurses had not 
 yet arrived. Miss Mabel Rich, who was so long with Dr. 
 Packard and who was being released for public-health 
 work, gladly came to help in the emergency. Some of the 
 wounds were serious, but the patient made a good recovery. 
 
 Scarcely had he gone before Miss Rich herself, and a 
 
 young friend, Miss S , were brought in very seriously 
 
 injured, the buggy in which they were driving having gone 
 over an embankment on to sharp rocks below. Narrow 
 mountain roads, horses, and Ford cars are not a safe com- 
 ibination. Our nurses' aide, Miss Thorpe, had arrived that 
 very day and a wire hastened the coming of the graduate 
 nurse, Miss Griffith, from Maryland. There was a period 
 
 of sharp anxiety before Miss Rich and Miss S could 
 
 be pronounced convalescent. 
 
 Then a young man with typhoid was brought in from one 
 of the lumber camps and soon another followed. These 
 proved to be serious cases, and for a long time the issue 
 was doubtful. Both recovered and were able to return to 
 their homes in October. Both were from West Virginia 
 — one the son of a Presbyterian minister. 
 
 One night at twelve o'clock the doorbell rang and a little 
 girl was carried in. She had taken a drink from a can 
 of concentrated lye and it seemed at first a hopeless case. 
 She had been treated by the neighbors and her grandfather 
 until they saw her getting worse, when they decided to make 
 the trip to the new hospital. By proper treatment and good 
 nursing she was restored to health. 
 
 Several accident cases from the logging camps have been 
 in for short periods, thus receiving in the first hours of their 
 injuries adequate attention and care. A man who came in 
 for a few days with a hand badly hurt, necessitating ampu- 
 tation of two fingers, said to Miss Thorpe the first night, 
 'T never thought anybody could be so good to anyone as 
 you are to me, a stranger." 
 
28 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Soon after this our first hospital baby was born, and later, 
 two more. These were all cases where special care and 
 skill were needed. It is one of the wonders that Dr. Packard 
 has performed, that in the first case, especially, mother and 
 child are both living and well. 
 
 The first death in the hospital was from old age. Granny 
 Banks was "by way of being a doctor herself," and pro- 
 fessional jealousy made her bitter against Dr. Packard and 
 his nurses. Her greeting to them on the road was a curse. 
 She adjured more than one of her friends to see to it that 
 when her time came she did not die with any doctor's 
 stuff inside her. But when she fell ill at last she told her 
 grandson to send for Dr. Packard, he might give her 
 "some tea" that would make her well. A stroke came before 
 the doctor was sent for, and it was with her good will 
 that she was carried into the building toward which she 
 had cast so many evil glances. She was made comfortable 
 for the ten days of gradual sinking till "her change came." 
 Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would climb the 
 steps and tiptoe through the halls to stand and look at 
 granny lying unconscious and to say how much better off 
 she was than they could have made her. 
 
 There was a shooting down on the creek one night and 
 after some days' delay the victim was brought in, and then 
 taken to Asheville for an X rays. One bullet was lodged in 
 the back of the neck, another in the back, both too near the 
 spinal cord to be extracted with safety. So back to the 
 Laurel Hospital he was brought, to die, as everyone said, 
 but he lived and slowly recovered the use of his limbs, and 
 when finally discharged, was able to walk out of the build- 
 ing. I saw him on the road the other day, husky and hearty 
 looking. 
 
 No human being could take charge of such a hospital and 
 continue to do the "outside work" as well — driving over the 
 mountains all hours of the days and nights seeking the sick 
 and distressed. Dr. Packard tried it and his health broke. 
 That is why he was sent away for a vacation. It explains, 
 also, the coming of Dr. Holden to take care of the outside 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 29 
 
 work and to help Dr. Packard in the hospital. Dr. Holden 
 had seen service in France and was looking for just such an 
 opportunity to put his life into some new field. 
 
 Just why Mrs. Packard has not broken down is not quite 
 clear. "Mrs. Packard," said her husband, "is a wonder. 
 She not only planned this hospital but she runs 
 it. Everything is in order and always ready. Last year 
 when we had twenty-five doctors and nurses down here 
 from Asheville for a two-day clinic she took care of every 
 one of them without any hitch in the machinery." Proudly 
 she takes visitors down into the storeroom and, opening 
 the doors of the closet, discloses more than five-hundred 
 quarts of canned fruits and vegetables all standing like little 
 soldiers at attention. For fear her hands may get into 
 some mischief this year, Mrs. Packard has planned to 
 provide hot lunches for the 140 school children who have 
 come to the new school building across the road. 
 
 "How about yourself, doctor?" the writer asked. "Now 
 that your vacation is over and Dr. Holden will take the 
 outside work, aren't you glad you won't have so many of 
 those lonely night rides on horseback over the mountains?" 
 
 He smiled. "They were never lonely" he said. "You 
 see I always had some sixty friends along." 
 
 "Sixty friends?" 
 
 "Yes, Orion, the Pleiades, Andromeda, Ursa Major and 
 Minor, Cassiopeia — " and he reeled off a list of his stellar 
 friends as if they were his cronies. He is "common" with 
 the stars. 
 
 There you have a picture of Dr. Packard, on his faithful 
 horse riding along over the mountains in the dead of night 
 communing with stars and bound for a distant cabin where 
 some one, very likely a child, is awaiting his healing touch. 
 
 Presbyterian Schools in the Southern Mountains. 
 No stronger factor for the regeneration of the backward 
 
30 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 and isolated community in the Southern Mountains could 
 be found than the educational work the Church is doing. 
 Should you take a map of Tennessee, Kentucky, and North 
 Carolina and mark on it the points at which the boarding 
 schools in this field are located you would find that there 
 are ten such schools stamped with the name of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. These schools vary one from another 
 in size, in emphasis, and in course of study but never in 
 purpose, for the development of a Christian leadership is 
 the aim of all. 
 
 A visit to any one of these would show that although 
 the standard is high as is befitting the work of the Church 
 there is a uniqueness in education that challenges attention. 
 And the reason for this is apparent. For not only must 
 the course of study conform to that prescribed for the pub- 
 lic schools of the state, but it must be so general on the 
 one hand and so intensive on the other that no boy or girl, 
 however limited in previous opportunities, can fail to get 
 that which will develop the best in him or her, and no com- 
 munity fail to receive later through the training of this 
 boy or girl, what it has a right to expect from having one 
 of its number "away at school." Back of every boy and 
 girl is the community, and the community must be taken 
 into consideration in the educational program. 
 
 The Purpose of These Schools. "It is the pecuHar 
 province of the mission school to educate and 'applicate,' " 
 writes Dr. Calfee, President of the Asheville Normal and 
 Associated Schools, and then he goes on to say: "It does 
 more than look after the needy individual. It fits that per- 
 son for the transmission of knowledge and ideals for trans- 
 forming and uplifting those back home. Any other policy 
 would sink to the low aim of isolated individual uplift." 
 Should you question him he would probably explain this by 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 31 
 
 showing you, for instance, the following courses in arith- 
 metic outlined in the school catalogue. 
 
 Arithmetic of the Home — Family budget, cost accounts, 
 household economics, dietary sanitation. Arithmetic of the 
 Farm — Farm accounts, land measure, lumber measure, 
 mensuration, painting, papering, et cetera, dairy prob- 
 lems, crops, cost of wastefulness versus thrift. Arithmetic 
 of Trade — Making change, quick methods, discounts, in- 
 voices, profit and loss. Arithmetic of the Bank — Interest, 
 bank accounts, promissory notes, bank discount. Arith- 
 metic of Community and Civic Life — Good roads, taxes, 
 insurance, investments. 
 
 And while he talked, you would see what he is seeing all 
 the time — the limited family budget, the insanitary home, 
 the poor hillside farm against which there has never been 
 reckoned either profit or loss, the stony road that crosses and 
 recrosses the creek as it winds its way up the mountain side 
 to each tiny cabin, and you would feel with him that there 
 could be no "isolated individual uplift" in the schools in 
 which you were interested. 
 
 Their Method — Practical Banking, for Example. 
 He would explain that not only do they teach banking at 
 the Asheville Normal, but they do banking — in fact they 
 are bankers, and he would describe the students' thrift bank, 
 in organization similar to that of a national bank, with 
 president, cashier, and board of directors; with regular 
 banking hours, at which time deposits are made and checks 
 from ten cents up are cashed; with directors' meetings at 
 stated times when plans are made to increase the number of 
 depositors, when the financial standing of the bank is ex- 
 amined, when action is taken as to what loans and invest- 
 ments should be made. 
 
 Home-Making. All this would seem very business-like 
 and you would probably commend it, but after all the Ashe- 
 
32 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 ville Normal is a girls' school and you would certainly want 
 to know what particular training is being given to the moun- 
 tain girl to fit her for the home. And President Calfee 
 would tell you that when the first school on the Asheville 
 campus, the Home School, was opened by Miss Florence 
 Stephenson thirty-four years ago, much thought was given 
 to training that would fit the girls for home-making and that 
 every year since that time more and more thought had 
 been given to it until now the Normal has not only full and 
 detailed courses on domestic science and art, but also a 
 practical and applied course in household management, in- 
 cluding cooking, nutrition, sanitation, laundry work. In the 
 Normal, as in all schools under our Church, the housework 
 is so organized that by a system of rotation during the 
 year each pupil is given training in the care of the entire 
 home. This practical instruction amounts to about two 
 hours a day, and each pupil is graded as strictly upon 
 her house duties as she is upon her classroom work. But 
 more than this: in at least four schools in the moun- 
 tain field home-making is taught by an even more direct 
 method than a share in the care of the school home, for a 
 plan has been worked out by which life may be really 
 lived. 
 
 Suppose You Take Dinner in a Cottage. You are 
 a guest at the Normal School and an invitation comes to 
 you to dine at the mountain cottage across the street from 
 the campus. You will be welcomed at the door by an ex- 
 tremely young housemother; you will be given a favorite 
 chair by the fire, and one by one five girls will slip in 
 to greet you and then slip away again. Probably when 
 they are gone, and you question the housemother she 
 will tell you that she is the mother for the week 
 of a family of seven, one a teacher; if you press 
 the point, she will tell you modestly that she plans 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 33 
 
 all the meals for this family, keeps an itemized cost of each 
 meal, makes all purchases for the house, supervises the home, 
 and when the day's work, including lessons, is done, conducts 
 family prayers. At dinner you will have the privilege of 
 dining with the cook, the milkmaid, the dishwashers, and the 
 other workers in the household. Even though a guest you 
 will be told with pride the cost of your dinner and graciously 
 allowed to see the homemaker's itemized account of which 
 you have heard. It would be necessary for you to see it or 
 you would not believe that so delicious a dinner could be 
 served to eight people for sixty-six cents. You would 
 realize, of course, that even at that cost the homemaker 
 had been guilty of gross extravagance because there was a 
 guest, when you heard that only seven cents a meal per 
 person is allowed. This is the plan: The senior class takes 
 turns by sixes in living in the model cottage on the campus ; 
 at the beginning of each six-week period each cottage is 
 given an allowance of twenty-one cents a day per person, 
 from which the six must maintain their home in every re- 
 spect. In connection with the cottage there are chickens 
 and a cow, these to be cared for by the homemakers. There 
 is no additional allowance for these, so they must be made 
 to maintain their own expenses, all profits to go to the main- 
 tenance of the home. Problems of vital importance to 
 every home, such as proper distribution of income, food 
 budgets, balanced diet, thrift and economy, hygiene and 
 sanitation are studied in a scientific way — an extremely 
 direct method of teaching the mountain girl what she should 
 know. 
 
 Asheville Normal Trains Teachers and Mission- 
 aries as Well as Home Makers. A survey of one of the 
 largest counties in North Carolina will show that fifty per 
 cent of the teachers were educated in the Asheville Normal ; 
 a survey of the whole state will reveal the fact that 182 
 
34 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 former pupils are teaching in the state. As these girls have 
 been trained especially for just such positions through their 
 courses in rural sociology, the result is twofold; first, a 
 large mission school enrollment of girls from away back 
 in our mountains, and second, the community is led along 
 lines of progress in church, home, public health, in local 
 industries, farm machinery, recreation, good roads. Ashe- 
 ville trains missionaries too, and we find its graduates 
 — fourteen from two classes alone — in the service of the 
 Church not only in our own land from Alaska to Porto Rico, 
 and Cuba but also overseas. 
 
 Curriculum Fitted to the Need. The author has 
 said that the ten schools differ in size; they do. One has an 
 enrollment of 90, another 115, a third 175, the largest 225. 
 They also differ in emphasis and course of study. Manual 
 training, gardening, agriculture, and pruning and grafting 
 of trees are taught in the girls' schools because of the piti- 
 able needs of these in the communities from which the girls 
 come and the opportunity for leadership in home improve- 
 ment and farm development which they may afford. The 
 schools for boys stress the former in order that they may 
 receive not only the necessary instruction in agriculture, 
 fruit-growing, dairying, and gardening, but the incentive 
 to return to their homes and develop their small mountain 
 farms in a way that will be of profit to them and an example 
 to the community. This is done through clubs, some 
 organized on the plan of country poultry clubs, pig clubs, 
 etc., and others on the so-called project plan. The pig and 
 poultry clubs, composed of younger boys not yet ready to 
 handle as large an undertaking as a "project," follow the 
 plan of having each boy raise a pig or a few chickens. 
 Under the "project" plan a boy takes over and manages 
 all the pigs or chickens on the place under the supervision 
 of the rural teacher. In the com "project" nine or ten boys 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 35 
 
 prepare the ground, plant, raise, and market about fifty 
 acres of corn under the direction of a teacher of agriculture 
 and the supervision of a capable farm manager. The boys 
 also take a course on soils and corn culture. The garden 
 "project" is conducted in much the same way, each boy 
 looking after about one half an acre. Each boy in a club 
 or "project" takes a classroom course in his particular sub- 
 ject, the club being a practical laboratory in which he applies 
 the knowledge gained from the teacher and the text. In the 
 club he does on a small sample-plot scale what he is ex- 
 pected to do on a larger scale on his hillside farm when 
 he returns to his home in the mountains. 
 
 The Unfinished Task in the Southern Mountains. 
 Fascinating as the stories of White Rock and Asheville 
 are, they are only two of many places in the Southern Moun- 
 tains where the Presbyterian Church is at work. A heroic 
 story will some day be written of Miss Helen Dingman and 
 her remarkable community and cooperative store work at 
 Smith, Kentucky. Our community centers, hospitals, and 
 schools are scattered widely through North Carolina, Ten- 
 nessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, and each 
 place has an inspiring story of its own — a story of glar- 
 ing needs, of insurmountable difficulties, of lives poured 
 into hard work and goals sometimes unreached — yet 
 for all that our task has just begun. In the Ozarks 
 and Southern Appalachians there are about 3,000,000 
 Americans, the great majority of whom have not had 
 the opportunities for education, for health, or for hap- 
 piness that the rest of us have enjoyed. Although they are 
 the descendants of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, they have been 
 shut off from the rest of the world by lack of roads 
 and transportation facilities. The march of progress has 
 passed them by. Until recently their schools have been 
 conducted for only a few weeks in the year. For the most 
 
36 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 part the people have been without the help of trained nurses, 
 doctors, teachers, or educated ministers. 
 
 More Hospitals and Dispensaries Needed. At White 
 Rock, the hospital's work has just begun. That hospital 
 must be maintained, for it has decades of work before it in 
 building up the bodies and minds of the younger generations. 
 And remember that it serves at best a few thousand — while 
 there are 3,000,000 altogether to be reached. 
 
 We must have more such hospitals. Where it is impos- 
 sible for the Church to build and sustain them it should 
 at least erect less expensive dispensaries like that at Smith, 
 Kentucky, where emergency cases of the community are 
 brought and where at clinics people may learn their ail- 
 ments, study remedies, and carry information with them 
 back into the mountains. This is the way actually to tackle 
 their health problems. We must provide the dispensaries 
 with nurses, arrange for regular visitation of them by 
 physicians called in to meet stated appointments. We must 
 make these dispensaries medical centers in the mountains. 
 
 Community Houses. And while the hospitals and dis- 
 pensaries are materializing, the Church must make the most 
 of the medical end of its community-house work. Every 
 community worker possesses a closet of medicines, gauze, 
 and antiseptics and a supply of common sense. She is a 
 wise administrator of common remedies and a nurse, un- 
 trained though she may be, for the region round about. 
 Accidents are brought to her, wounds, cases of poisoning 
 such as snake bites and poison ivy. She is always the ex- 
 tender of ''first aid." There is not an hour in the day that 
 some one fails to solicit her help in some form or other. 
 
 Yet the community house tries to be more than that. 
 In a smaller way it tries to be what the hospital and dis- 
 pensary really are — a base from which instruction is given 
 in the care of the sick and the prevention of disease along 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 37 
 
 creeks and valleys where for miles and miles there is neither 
 a toilet in existence nor a window screened. 
 
 Medically here is the task of the Church: (i) To 
 care for the sick of several millions of mountaineers away up 
 in what Horace Kephart calls "the back of beyond," where 
 surgical cases requiring immediate attention must be carried 
 on stretchers over fords and rocky paths to the distant rail- 
 roads. (2) To give instruction to hidden multitudes de- 
 pendent upon old women's remedies, herbs, mud and manure 
 poultices, and the like. (3) To teach them the clean, sani- 
 tary methods of life. 
 
 Education. The Rock of Gibraltar which ever stands 
 forth unconquerable before the mountaineers is money. 
 These people have just enough to employ untrained teachers 
 who have not had schooling beyond the seventh grade 
 primary, and sometimes not even that, the length of the 
 school year being determined by the amount of money in the 
 county treasury — a sum that divided among the teachers 
 allows about $200 to $300 a teacher, and when spent re- 
 quires the shutting up of the school for the rest of the 
 year. There are seventy to one hundred children turned 
 loose for nine or ten months during which they forget the 
 little they have learned. 
 
 But the Church coming to the rescue sends its workers 
 over to the schoolhouse to fill out eight or nine 
 months, thus saving these little folks from swelling the 
 multitudes of illiterates. And when the schools are too 
 poor and the teachers too ignorant, the parents of these 
 children are encouraged to send them to our denominational 
 schools such as Borland Bell at Hot Springs, North Caro- 
 lina, or the Pease House and the Home School at Asheville, 
 from which they may go to the Normal and Collegiate 
 Institute — one of the finest institutions of the South. 
 
 To discontinue this method of procedure while the moun- 
 
38 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 tain people have so little money with which to run their 
 schools would not alone take from them the example of a 
 superior school which our Church supplies but cause cries 
 of resentment and depair through a thousand ranges of the 
 Southern Mountains. While there are coves where teach- 
 ers do not know enough to teach beyond the fourth grade 
 primary; while parents confidently tell you their children 
 have learned all the teacher knows and they are helping 
 their children with their books; while there is money enough 
 to keep the schools open only a few weeks in the year — the 
 Church must continue to fill the breach. In the meantime 
 the work of our Country Life Department is cut out for it. 
 It must so encourage the use of modern methods in getting 
 prosperity from the soil that these folks may some day 
 say to the Boards of the Church: "Thank God for your 
 help, and that through your help we are at last able to help 
 ourselves." 
 
 Religion. The churches in the Southern Mountains 
 practically all belong to the emotional group. To them 
 religion is feeling; it is shouting; it is a certain emotional 
 experience; it is getting the Holy Spirit, standing up in 
 meeting and speaking with tongues, clapping the hands, 
 and stamping the feet. The further you go back into the 
 mountains, the more is religion viewed as an experience of 
 emotion. The work of the Church cannot halt until its 
 ministers entering these valleys and coves have taught the 
 mountaineers that emotion has its place in religion, but 
 without life it is but "sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal." 
 A sane and well-balanced religion of faith and love, a re- 
 ligion not of ecstasy but of brotherhood and service — this 
 is the duty and the privilege of the Presbyterian Church 
 to share with the southern mountaineers. And this we are 
 giving them through the intelligent unfolding of Bible 
 truth in the Sunday schools which we have planted here and 
 
IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 39 
 
 there, like oases in a desert of ignorance ; through the whole- 
 some example and ministry of doctors, teachers, and com- 
 munity workers; through the sane counsel of trained pas- 
 tors. 
 
 / 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 I. What states are included in "the Southern Mountains"? 
 how many people? of what racial origin? 
 
 2. Why has their social progress been slow? 
 
 3. Describe the roads of a mountain community ; the 
 
 houses; the stores; the public buildings; the schools. 
 
 4. Describe a mountain home as to equipment and degree 
 
 of privacy. 
 
 5. Illustrate the school work in a mountain community 
 
 showing the practical and financial difficulties and 
 the way in which these may be overcome, 
 
 6. How great is the need of medical work in the moun- 
 
 tains? Make a list of the obstacles a doctor would 
 have to face. To what extent could he succeed? 
 
 7. Indicate the type of religious work among the moun- 
 
 taineers. 
 
 8. What other missionary projects in the Southern Moun- 
 
 tains is the Presbyterian Church conducting? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 
 
 (a) Mexicans in the U. S. A. 
 
 (b) Porto Ricans 
 
 (c) Cubans 
 
MEXICANS IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 0£ the Field 
 
 In Mexico the revolution which began in 191 3 
 brought want and desolation : in the United States the 
 World War opened doors of opportunity to the com- 
 mon laborer. It was a day when railroads were pushed 
 to their utmost capacity, and unnumbered miles of 
 track must be kept in condition; a day when a stac- 
 cato of bursting shells made copper king. 
 
 And so into the mines of Arizona, the orchards of 
 California, and the ranches of Texas, Mexicans 
 swarmed in vast hordes. Behind was the urge of 
 want; ahead, the lure of plenty of work at fabulous 
 wages. To-day an eighth of Mexico's population is 
 living under the Stars and Stripes. Added to this 
 number are the thousands of contract laborers who 
 come to work in the cotton camps and the beet fields, 
 and return to Mexico when the crops have been 
 gathered. 
 
 The mere presence of so many foreigners is in 
 itself enough of a problem; but when we consider the 
 fact that a definite propaganda against Americaniza- 
 tion is going on among them, the situation immedi- 
 ately becomes more complex. Mazes of misunder- 
 standing, dating from the War of 1848, must be re- 
 moved; the clouds of suspicion and hatred must be 
 dispelled; standards of living must be raised; and 
 above all we must preach the Christ who enthrones 
 conscience and teaches self-control. 
 
 And the business requires haste. These people have 
 changed their homes, their work, their surroundings, 
 their philosophy of life. Most of them have cast 
 aside their faith and their hearts are empty. Unless 
 Christ can be brought into the house that is swept and 
 garnished, the last state of these people will be worse 
 than the first. 
 
MEXICANS IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions an evange- 
 listic and social service work among Spanish-speaking 
 people is being carried on in twenty stations in Cali- 
 fornia, tiHeen in Arizona, twenty-seven in New Mex- 
 ico, thirteen in Colorado, and seven in Texas. For 
 the efficient conduct of this work one superintendent, 
 twenty-six ordained ministers, and six women workers 
 are employed. A summer camp for Mexican boys is 
 maintained on Catalina Island, where from £fty to 
 seventy-five lads each summer are learning the better 
 side of America — our ideals and our religion. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board of Home Missions, 
 three boarding schools, eight day schools, one hospi- 
 tal, and two medical stations are maintained. The 
 boarding schools are: Allison-James School at Santa 
 Fe, Menaul School at Albuquerque, and Forsythe 
 Memorial School at Los Angeles. The day schools 
 are: in Colorado, San Juan at Mogote; in New Mex- 
 ico, Agua Negra at Hoi man, Alice Hyson Mission at 
 Ranches of Taos, El Prado de Taos at Taos, El Rito 
 at Chacon, Embudo at Dixon, John Hyson Memorial 
 at Chimayo, and Truchas. The hospital is at Brook- 
 lyn Cottage, Dixon, and the medical stations at Pe- 
 nasco and Trementina, New Mexico. 
 
 Through these channels the Presbyterian Church is 
 reaching a few thousand Mexicans each year — but 
 the Mexicans are pouring into the country by hun- 
 dreds of thousands. 
 
Chapter II 
 
 AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 
 
 (a) Mexicans in the United States 
 
 An Investment in Mexican Flesh and Blood. In- 
 vestments in Mexico are not excessively popular these days. 
 It requires both faith and courage to sink money into 
 Mexican oil or minerals. It demands equal faith and 
 courage to sink money into Mexican life and character, even 
 on this side of the border. But years of acquaintanceship 
 with the Mexican people have not lessened either the faith 
 or the courage of our missionaries along the border. Let 
 us take as a representative of them Dr, Robert N. McLean 
 of Los Angeles. Camp Juarez on Catalina Island was one 
 of his Mexican investments. 
 
 The Mexican situation, according to Dr. McLean, is 
 about ten per cent Mexico's fault and ten per cent our 
 fault; the rest is due to mutual misunderstanding. He 
 established the camp on Catalina Island to help to develop 
 leadership among the Mexicans. If these boys can be 
 persuaded what real Americanism means, there will be less 
 chance of their misunderstanding us when they are men. 
 
 You cannot listen to Dr. McLean without feeling con- 
 vinced that he knows what he is talking about. However 
 differently he may see the Mexican problem from the usual 
 newspaper article, you have no doubt of his sincerity and 
 of his loyalty to this country. In fact, you come away 
 
 44 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 45 
 
 feeling that he is a far better representative of America 
 than the sensational reporter who pictures Mexico as a na- 
 tion of bandits. 
 
 So great is Dr. McLean's conception of the Mexican 
 problem that he is putting in his life, as his father did 
 before him, trying to help solve it. From Colorado to the 
 coast and all along the border, he is constantly at work 
 among the 1,750,000 Mexicans in this country. He believes 
 in the Mexicans. To him they are the modern counterpart 
 of the Samaritans of Jesus' day. As Jesus saw the better 
 nature of the Samaritan, McLean sees the better nature 
 of the Mexican. Certain it is that America has in these 
 people a large alien element and they can never be assimi- 
 lated until we recognize the best in them and they recog- 
 nize the best in us, and we make up our minds to be friends. 
 Many of them are loyal to America now. The State of New 
 Mexico lost more sons of Spanish blood upon the fields of 
 France than of Anglo-Saxon blood. Yet there are great 
 hosts of new arrivals to be assimilated. A large element 
 in this population is transitory. Men come over for a few 
 months or years and then return to Mexico. Many parents 
 of wealthy and middle-class families are bringing their 
 children to the United States for education. Thousands of 
 laborers are brought over each year ^'in bond" to do some 
 specific work. They thus avoid payment of the eight dol- 
 lars per capita tax at the port of entry, but must return 
 as soon as their work is completed. Every one of these 
 laborers as he goes back, every one of the young students 
 returning from his American education, is a missionary of 
 either good or ill will to America. For better or worse 
 every one of them is an ambassador. And his treatment in 
 this country determines which gospel he will preach. 
 
 The primary need has been and is for young Mexicans, 
 intelligent, unselfish, devoted to their people, yet American 
 
46 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 in spirit and aim. They, and they only, can lead our Latin- 
 Americans in the Southwest to the place in the American 
 Commonwealth which they deserve. To develop young 
 Mexicans of this type was the purpose of the experiment on 
 Catalina Island. Over fifty young Mexicans ranging from 
 twelve to twenty years of age, some from homes of poverty, 
 some from homes of comfort, some from factories, and 
 some from berry fields and orange groves, sailed into Avalon 
 Bay and pitched their tents along the beach on the lee- 
 ward side of the island. Dr. McLean had had some fear 
 that the Mexican boys would not enjoy camping. The. 
 love of the out of doors is not rooted in them as it is in 
 Anglo-Saxons. They had been wont instead to find their 
 pleasures in theaters and dance halls of cities and towns. 
 But the fear proved groundless and though this was the 
 first camp in this country ever conducted exclusively for 
 Mexican boys, and though camping was an entirely novel 
 experience to them, their enjoyment was as keen and their 
 spirit as dauntless as that of experienced campers. 
 
 The call for a morning dip roused them from their blan- 
 kets at 6.00 A.M. Dressing, flag-raising, setting-up drill, and 
 breakfast followed in rapid succession. 
 
 After breakfast an hour was allowed for camp duties; 
 one tent was given the privilege of washing the dishes, 
 another of gathering and chopping wood for the cook. 
 
 Inspection coming at ten o'clock was the great event of 
 the morning. For some time beforehand, the boys had been 
 engaged in sweeping every speck of dirt from the canvas 
 floor of the tent, reefing its walls tightly and smartly, 
 clearing the surrounding ground of all bits of wood, string, 
 and rubbish, cleaning the lantern and transforming their 
 beds into tight and wrinkleless blanket rolls. 
 
 The morning swim came at eleven o'clock. An efficient 
 camp life-saving corps, patrolling in a skiff and upon the 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 47 
 
 beach, forestalled any possibility of accident. Swimming 
 lessons, races on the beach, speed and endurance tests passed 
 the time, and a general protest always greeted the recall 
 whistle. Once out of the water the prospect of dinner called, 
 and clothes were speedily hustled on under the spur of a 
 camp appetite. Following dinner came the siesta time, 
 when the boys were encouraged to write letters home, and to 
 read. The Los Angeles Library had furnished a collection 
 of forty books — volumes of biography, nature study, and 
 science, as well as stories such as "Tom Sawyer" and 
 "Treasure Island." 
 
 Baseball games, played as hotly and as vociferously as by 
 any young Americans, track meets, and hikes made up the 
 afternoon program. Their ball games required a man of no 
 little courage as umpire. And they carried their hikes 
 through with that grit and perseverance which we sometimes 
 like to think we monopolize as Anglo-Saxon. Twenty boys 
 started out for Black Jack, the second highest peak on the 
 island; it was a hike which shortened the breath and dried 
 the mouth and sapped the strength of the hardiest. Yet 
 twenty boys started and twenty boys reached the summit. 
 Not one proved a loafer or a quitter. 
 
 Thus far this camp was very much like any other camp. 
 It had the same love of sport, and the same aversion to dish- 
 washing. But there was something in the spirit of the 
 leaders of this camp, and in their purpose and method, 
 that made it different, as the following incident will show. 
 The boys had enjoyed a hearty dinner, climaxed with ice 
 cream, and had just finished their letters home. It was 
 one of those lazy afternoons that all camp leaders dread — 
 where homesickness develops and anarchy is bred. Sud- 
 denly came the announcement: "Boys, at five o'clock we're 
 going to have a program in which each tent will act out 
 a Bible story. And to the tent producing the best stunt 
 
48 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 will go as a prize an extra feed of ice cream." The effect 
 of the last words was magical. Immediately the camp 
 was all activity. Yonder on the beach, a group of 
 boys was embarking in the skiff to collect kelp for 
 costumes; others were raising an altar upon the sand, 
 the foundation of which was an old water cask. The rub- 
 bish heap and the outdoor kitchen were being ransacked for 
 ancient buckets, wash-boiler tops, and pasteboard cartons 
 from which to fashion armor. Here a number of boys were 
 draping themselves Oriental fashion in blankets and sheets, 
 their heads decked with towels for turbans. Gradually the 
 activity concentrated, and at various points around the camp 
 could be seen knots of boys diligently rehearsing their parts. 
 
 The hour of five arrived. The sun, still high in the 
 heavens, provided ample lighting facilities; the scenery for 
 each act was chosen with care, and the audience accommo- 
 datingly took seats wherever the natural background best 
 provided a setting for the act. If the desert was desired, it 
 distributed its members on the sand; if the wilderness or 
 mountains, it followed the players to a near-by hill; if the 
 seashore, it ranged itself along the surf-lined rim of the 
 ocean. 
 
 Those Bible stories were nothing if not vivid. The cos- 
 tuming was ingenious, the acting spontaneous; an element 
 of humor and a slight touch of the ludicrous were evident 
 now and then. But the spirit of the presentation was 
 reverent. The choice of stories ranged from Genesis to the 
 Gospels. Included in the program was the story of Cain's 
 envy and murder of Abel (the modern touch being supplied 
 by the weapon of offense, a baseball bat) ; of David's con- 
 quest over the giant Goliath; of the dance of the daughter 
 of Herodias before Herod for her gruesome reward; of the 
 journey of the Good Samaritan and his mercy toward the 
 beaten (realistically indeed on this occasion) traveler; of 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 49 
 
 Abraham's excursion to Mount Moriah for the sacrifice of 
 his son, Isaac. 
 
 With true boyish vim and vigor, each one of these 
 stories was produced. But the ice-cream prize was carried off 
 by the story of that contest on Mount Carmel between Elijah 
 and the prophets of Baal. An altar had been reared. 
 Around it gathered the prophets of Baal, clad only in tur- 
 ban and breechcloth. Bowed upon their knees, lifting their 
 arms supplicatingly to heaven they cried, "Baal, responde- 
 nos! Baal respondenos ! " (Baal, hear us! Baal, hear us!) 
 But their prayers were in vain ; no fire from heaven appeared 
 to consume their sacrifice. Elijah, clad in the white gar- 
 ments of the prophet, stood by and mockingly commanded: 
 "Cry aloud, for he is a god. Perhaps he is musing, or he 
 is on a journey ; or it may be that he is asleep and must be 
 awakened." Frenzy seized upon the heathen priests; they 
 leaped around the altar; knives flashed in the sunlight, and 
 from their edges, coated with crimson paint, there appeared 
 staring red gashes upon the arms and shoulders and breasts 
 of the devotees. But at last voice and energy failed. No 
 answer had come, and they were defeated. 
 
 It was now the turn of Elijah. Quietly, with twelve stones 
 for the twelve tribes of Israel, he built his altar; twelve 
 containers of water he poured over it (American tin cups 
 taking the place of Oriental jars). Then he knelt to pray, 
 when suddenly a flash as of lightning blazed upon the altar. 
 And as the smoke of the flash light drifted away, the children 
 of Israel fell upon their faces exclaiming, "The Lord, he is 
 God! the Lord, he is God!" 
 
 After supper came camp fire and a glorious "sing." Tir- 
 ing temporarily of this, the boys called for the "Bug," a 
 swinging, crashing bit of barbaric harmony on the mandolin 
 and guitar. Then came calls for Theda Bara (thus had 
 Filiberto with the clear tenor voice received his camp nick- 
 
50 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 name). "La Paloma," he sang with its intoxicating rhythm, 
 or the dreamy passionate "La Golandrina," or others of the 
 haunting, lingering Spanish melodies. Quiet was settling 
 upon the boys; the fire had burned into a bed of coals 
 which cast but a dusky glow upon the circle of faces. It 
 was a time when every listener was receptive and impressions 
 for a lifetime might be made. Then from one of the leaders 
 there came a short talk touching on the struggles which every 
 boy and young man, be he American or Mexican, must face. 
 A closing song and the evening was over. 
 
 Thus the days passed, the boys breathing in at the same 
 time American air and American ideals, adding to them- 
 selves strength of body and mind and soul. Twice every 
 day at reveille and at retreat, they stood at attention and 
 saluted the American flag. Constantly were they in the 
 company of the young Americans, their leaders. And in 
 those few days perhaps more of the real meaning of the 
 American character and spirit came to them than in all the 
 previous months or years of their residence within our 
 borders. 
 
 Of the camp boys, two will serve their people as ministers, 
 one as an engineer, two as physicians, two or three perhaps 
 as teachers. But what of the remaining twoscore or more 
 boys? The years alone can tell. A friendly influence en- 
 tered their lives and lives are sometimes transformed by 
 friendship. In 1877, in central Mexico, there was born a 
 lad of Indian blood, Doroteo Arango, whom friendship seems 
 to have passed by. Instead his youth was embittered by the 
 murder of an official who had outraged his sister. He be- 
 came an outlaw and took the name of Villa. And for years 
 he has been a menace not only in Mexico, but to the peace 
 of all America as well. In 1806, there was born in southern 
 Mexico, another lad of Indian blood, Benito Juarez. Left 
 an orphan at the age of four, he found a friend in a 
 
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AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 51 
 
 charitable merchant, who fostered and educated him. And 
 rich dividends did the merchant's friendly care return. For 
 Juarez, after a term as governor of his native state, Oaxaca, 
 left it the most prosperous in the country. He led his 
 people in their successful struggle against the French and 
 Maximilian. Thrice was he elected President of the Repub- 
 lic. And even now, almost five decades after his death, he 
 still lives in the mind of the Mexican peon as "The Great 
 Liberator." 
 
 "I hope," said Dr. McLean, "that we can turn these lives 
 from the path of Villa to the path of Juarez." 
 
 The Plaza Schools. The camp on Catalina Island last 
 summer was our latest experiment in Mexican work. Several 
 years ago, in the same pioneering spirit, the Presbyterian 
 Church established as an experiment a small day school for 
 Mexican children in a remote settlement in New Mexico 
 where educational opportunities were lacking. As late as 
 1872 there was but one public school in New Mexico. The 
 experiment was such a success that it was soon extended to 
 other isolated communities and to-day there are seven of 
 these "plaza" schools in that state. In most of these schools 
 the course of instruction covers five to eight grades. In 
 some cooking, sewing, and manual training are taught in 
 addition to the regular course; in all the Bible is studied. 
 A tuition fee of from twenty-five to thirty-five cents a month 
 in charged for each pupil, and a load of wood required from 
 each family. 
 
 Although these schools are small and all together do not 
 reach more than four hundred boys and girls in a year, their 
 influence is very real, not only on the boys and girls them- 
 selves but on the community in which they are located. One 
 community last year rallied to help in the building of a 
 community house in connection with the day school — fifty- 
 two days of volunteer work were given, 300 loads of stone 
 
52 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 were hauled free for the foundation and the walls. With 
 such a contribution the people of the community feel that 
 it is their house and whole families spend evening after 
 evening there. Another community has been taught to play. 
 A wide-awake missionary seeing the real need of recreation 
 and its educational value, secured apparatus and opened a 
 playground. As a consequence the entire town is interested 
 — and plays. After four o'clock when the playground is 
 open to the public, men of all ages and sizes may be seen on 
 the "slide and stride." In another plaza new and large 
 windows cut in heretofore solid adobe walls show that the 
 talks on fresh air and value of sunshine have been heeded. 
 
 More encouraging even than the changes in the com- 
 munity, is the fact that the boys and girls are being led to 
 desire and seek education further. Five years ago not a 
 girl in the school at Chimayo had finished eighth-grade work. 
 This year the mission reported twenty-one of its pupils 
 away at boarding school. Of the pupils of the El Rito 
 School, Chacon, in recent years, eleven are now taking ad- 
 vanced educational work elsewhere, two are in the ministry, 
 four are teachers, and one is in the United States Navy. 
 
 Young people graduating from these plaza schools, 
 which are elementary, are encouraged to continue their work 
 in the Menaul School (for boys) at Albuquerque, the 
 Forsythe Memorial School (for girls) at Los Angeles, or at 
 the Allison James School at Santa Fe. 
 
 Unfinished Business : Educational. But fine as these 
 schools are, their total enrollment is a few hundred, and there 
 are literally hundreds of thousands of boys and girls who 
 ought to have the same opportunities. Moreover none of 
 these schools provides more than high-school training. The 
 net result of this is that none trains as completely as it 
 should for Christian leadership. In all of our work in the 
 Southwest we have not a single worker trained by any of 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 53 
 
 these girls' schools. We need schools to begin where these 
 leave off and to give the college and specialized training 
 that will prepare native leadership for Christian work. 
 
 Social Work Needed. Until recently when we wanted 
 to bring the inspiration of a living Christianity to these 
 people it has been our custom to rent a hall, employ a 
 minister, hang out a sign, and begin preaching the gospel 
 to those who would come. Battering down the walls of 
 superstition, prejudice, and ignorance was slow and uphill 
 work by this method, for thousands of the very people 
 who most needed our message would not come into these 
 halls, most of which were dark and dingy and altogether un- 
 attractive. So we have opened up "Homes of Neighborly 
 Service." We rent a house in the Mexican quarter, locate 
 in it a social worker, a woman of broad sympathy and quick 
 understanding of the needs of the people. The social worker 
 begins by regenerating her own house and making a model 
 home of it. Then she visits the Mexican women and invites 
 them to come to her house at pre-arranged hours for the 
 study of the English language. The women are eager to 
 come. The very environment of the home teaches the gos- 
 pel of home-making. To the English lessons are added other 
 courses in home-making, marketing, care of babies, sanita- 
 tion, personal hygiene. In some homes clinics are held, and 
 day nurseries, and various forms of recreational activities. 
 These homes are so popular that we must have more of them. 
 They are actually reaching the people with practical Christ- 
 ianity and true Americanism. We could put in at least a 
 hundred such homes now if we had the means. 
 
 Religious Work Fundamental. During the past few 
 years the heart of the Church has been touched as never 
 before by her social responsibility, and this awakening has 
 been reflected in our Mexican work. Formerly we simply 
 rented halls or erected adobe huts ; and if we had a bell we 
 
54 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 rang it, and invited men to come and listen to the preaching 
 of the gospel. They did not come — that is, in any large 
 numbers. Then we built schools and worked with the young. 
 We erected settlement houses and interpreted the gospel 
 of Christ through the touch of the social worker. So much 
 have we been interested in the bodies of men that when 
 we established a dental clinic in Los Angeles for the Mexi- 
 cans the daily press exclaimed in surprised headlines: 
 "Church goes into the business of pulling teeth." 
 / But we must not lose sight of the fact that ultimately a 
 ministry to the bodies of men is secondary to the ministry 
 of saving their souls. There is no piece of social work in 
 the Mexican field which is not tied up to either a Sunday 
 school or a church. The marvelous stories of spiritual re- 
 generation which have refreshed the Church coming from 
 Korea and Africa, are duplicated on a smaller scale in our 
 Mexican churches at El Paso and in Los Angeles. During 
 the calendar year 1920 no less than 100 members were added 
 to the El Paso church upon confession of faith. Men and 
 women listen to the message with a heart hunger which is 
 appealing. During the fiscal year of 1919 and 1920, the 
 gross advance in our Mexican churches was twenty-five per 
 cent, ' In every real work of Americanization among the 
 Mexican people, the preaching of those eternal principles 
 which lie at the foundation of our American life is of the 
 utmost importance. 
 
 The missionary enthusiasm of the Mexican people makes 
 possible the success which attends the preaching of our 
 ministers. A converted Mexican goes out to win his friends 
 just as did those men who so long ago first came to know 
 and love their Lord. During the past year an Indian 
 Mexican in California who was as bitter as Saul of Tarsus 
 in his persecution of those who were "of the Way," has been 
 won to a knowledge of the truth. Like Paul before his con- 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 55 
 
 version, so he has been like Paul since his conversion. He 
 can neither read nor write, and he works with pick and 
 shovel in a section gang of Mexican laborers. Each day at 
 the noon hour, when the men sit down among the imple- 
 ments of their toil to eat their luncheons, he draws a Span- 
 ish testament from his pocket, and says something like 
 this: ^'I have here a little book, but I cannot read. Will 
 some one do me the favor of reading to me?" 
 
 It is difficult for anyone raised in a Protestant country to 
 realize how barren these lives are of fellowship with a liv- 
 ing God. Their Christ is a dead Christ. The only religion 
 they have been taugh't is a religion of rite and ritual, form 
 and ceremony. The end of all our work must be to make 
 God a living reality in their lives — a comrade and friend. 
 All the Protestant churches together thus far have enrolled 
 only 10,018 and a Sunday-school membership of 11,023 
 among the more than one and three-quarter million Mexi- 
 cans in this country. We must find ways of reaching 
 the rest. Seventy-five per cent of them can neither 
 read nor write. Hundreds of thousands of them will 
 go back to Mexico. Every one of them is a potential friend 
 of America or a potential enemy. We must make them 
 friends and there is no better way than to make them true 
 Christians. Those that stay here we must assimilate into 
 our American life and we would not be true to the ideals 
 of the founders of this country nor to our faith as Christians 
 if we did not try to meet them as brothers and share with 
 them our blessings as well as our labor. 
 
 What You Can Do to Help. Give your sympathy, 
 your interest, your money, and your prayers, and remember 
 always to think of Mexicans, not as bandits or unworthy 
 people, but as fellow human beings, children of the same 
 God. They have not had your opportunities, but they have 
 great possibilities and they need your friendship. 
 
56 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 A remarkable fraternization service between a Mexican 
 congregation and an American congregation was held in the 
 Emmanuel Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles some months 
 ago. There were present about 2 50 Mexicans and probably 
 twice that number of Americans. The hymns were sung 
 antiphonally, the Americans singing the first verse in Eng- 
 lish, the Mexicans singing the second verse in Spanish, and 
 so on. When the time for the sermon came the Mexican 
 pastor addressed his congregation in their own tongue and 
 this was the burden of his address: 'T have heard you 
 speak of this city saying it is not the 'city of angels' but a 
 city of devils, for there are those here who oppress you and 
 scorn you and treat you as though you were not human. In 
 the future when you speak of Americans do not think of 
 those who do such things, but rather of Christian Americans 
 like these who have invited us to worship with them in this 
 service." Then it came time for the American pastor to 
 address his own congregation. "When you think of Mexi- 
 cans," he said *'do not think of a few who rob and steal 
 and kill. Unfortunately there are a few Americans who do 
 that sort of thing, too. But think of Christian Mexicans like 
 these, your brothers." 
 
 The spirit of that service will solve the Mexican problem, 
 and until we have that spirit the problem will not be solved. 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 57 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. How many Mexicans are there in the United States? 
 
 How recently have they arrived? What is their 
 attitude toward the United States? 
 
 2. Describe the camp on Catalina Island. Note the 
 
 number present; the daily schedule; the Bible dram- 
 atization contest program. What is the value of the 
 camp? 
 
 3. What kinds of schools are particularly needed among 
 
 the Mexicans? Why? Describe the Plaza Schools, 
 their purpose and curricula. 
 
 4. What are the ''Homes of Neighborly Service"? 
 
 5. What needs to be done in a religious way for the 
 
 Mexicans? 
 
 6. Indicate the right attitude of Americans toward 
 
 Mexicans, 
 
PORTO RICANS 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 Of the Field 
 
 Porto Rico is said to be more responsive to the 
 message of the gospel than any other country in 
 Latin America. But until the American intervention 
 in iSgg the type of religion that flourished on the 
 island was inclined to be one of rigid formalism with 
 a naive separation between religion and morality that 
 did not tend to improve the quality or influence of 
 either. 
 
 What is needed is a dynamic gospel message if the 
 people of Porto Rico are to become Christians in 
 more than name. 
 
 In igi8 the island adopted prohibition by a vote of 
 nearly 2 to i, the influence of Protestant pastors and 
 workers being a powerful factor in securing this re- 
 sult. 
 
 Through the schools, the press, and other influences, 
 loyalty to America is rapidly developing. As the 
 average of intelligence rises the demand for thor- 
 oughly trained ministers and leaders increases. More 
 adequate facilities for training and supporting such 
 must be provided. 
 
 Most of the Porto Ricans live in one-room thatched 
 huts in small agricultural villages and are mostly in 
 a state of poverty. 
 
 The £rst census taken after the American occupa- 
 tion in i8gg showed that eighty-three per cent of the 
 population was illiterate. American supervised public 
 schools which now enroll 175,000 children have greatly 
 improved this condition for the younger men and wo- 
 men of Porto Rico and for the rising generation. 
 
 American Volume — Interchurch Survey. 
 
PORTO RICANS 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board of Home Missions a 
 splendid hospital is being maintained at San Juan. It 
 is the finest hospital on the island and is constantly 
 setting new standards of health and hygiene as well 
 as of methods of treatment of disease and wounds. 
 Seventeen workers are commissioned in the hospital 
 and thirty nurses enrolled in the Nurses' Training 
 School connected with it. Last year the hospital 
 ministered to 977 bed patients and 27,813 dispensary 
 patients. Nine hundred and forty-one operations were 
 performed. 
 
 Community stations are maintained at Mayaguez 
 and Aquadilla, employing all told eighteen commis- 
 sioned workers and enrolling 216 Sunday-school pu- 
 pils, and at Mayaguez rendering a public-health serv- 
 ice to 1500 patients. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions important 
 evangelistic work is being conducted through 30 
 churches engaging 33 ministers. In addition to this 
 the Board is cooperating in the development of the 
 Polytechnic Institute, the leading educational institu- 
 tion on the island and profoundly influencing the 
 whole social life of the Antilles. 
 
 A splendid beginning — but only a beginning. The 
 goal — an educated Christian democracy — is still far 
 distant. 
 
(b) Porto Ricans 
 
 Porto Rico, open to Protestant influence only since the 
 American occupation in 1898, has made remarkable progress 
 in every phase of its insular life. Porto Rico did not wait 
 for a constitutional amendment for prohibition, but voted 
 for it two years before the United States went dry. It 
 did not wait for Church union but with mutual agreement 
 made an apportionment of the island among denominations 
 and closing her seminaries united them in one interdenomina- 
 tional school where the young men are trained for any one 
 of half a dozen different Protestant Churches. 
 
 In three particulars the Presbyterian Church is rendering 
 service to the million and a quarter of its inhabitants. 
 
 I. The Hospital at San Juan. A leading Porto Rican 
 when asked what was America's greatest contribution to the 
 island, replied without hesitation, "The San Juan Hospital." 
 It is the finest hospital in the insular province. It was 
 erected and is maintained by the Woman's Board. Porto 
 Rico has a very healthful climate, yet its people are ill much 
 of the time, their diseases arising from lack of nutrition, bad 
 housing, and neglect of the laws of sanitation. There are 
 approximately 1,118,000 people in Porto Rico, yet it is said 
 that probably eighty per cent are victims of the hookworm 
 disease. Ignorance and poverty are additional factors in 
 increasing the death rate and in making medical work a 
 most important and needed form of missionary activity. 
 Moreover, as in other communities where a hospital is an in- 
 novation, most people do not seek its care until their ail- 
 ments have reached a dangerous stage. But when Porto 
 Ricans are badly off and need the best of medical care and 
 treatment, they cast longing eyes from every part of the 
 
 60 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 6i 
 
 island toward the Presbyterian Hospital at San Juan and use 
 any and every means of getting there — automobile, horse- 
 back, pushcart, a chair carried by friends, or even a pair 
 of crutches. They come to the hospital in just such ways 
 as they came to Jesus, determined to receive help even 
 though it requires letting down through the housetop. 
 
 The new hospital building, completed in 191 7, has had 
 its capacity taxed to the utmost. Its 70 beds have been kept 
 filled and there is a constant and long waiting list. In 19 19, 
 977 patients were treated in the hospital beds, and 941 oper- 
 ations were performed. Two hundred patients throng the 
 dispensary in the afternoon. More than 30,000 come under 
 the care of the nurses and physicians in a single year. 
 
 Along with the medical care goes helpful religious influ- 
 ence. There is Scripture reading and prayer in the wards 
 and in the clinic. Every Monday morning the pastor of the 
 Presbyterian Church in Santurce holds a service which is 
 usually well attended. On Sunday afternoon there is a 
 friendly religious talk in each ward. Many of the patients 
 take gospels or tracts to their homes. 
 
 The Nurses' Training School, in connection with the 
 hospital, ministers to one of the great needs of Porto Rico. 
 It was the pioneer school of its kind on the island and its 
 graduates may be found in some of the most responsible 
 nursing positions. The demand for these graduates has 
 always exceeded the supply. There are now in training in 
 the nurses' school thirty Porto Rican girls. The supervising 
 and teaching staff are all graduates of the school and many 
 patients who have been in the hospitals in the States testify 
 that the standards of discipline and efficiency are equal 
 to those of the hospitals in the States. Since the demand for 
 nurses exceeds the supply, the Woman's Board is hoping to 
 enlarge the training school. It is also planning to take in 
 a number of young women to train not only for hospital 
 
62 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 work but for public-health service, district nursing, and 
 other missionary work. 
 
 Evidences o£ Appreciation. A man from St. Thomas 
 Island came into the hospital offices one day and in speak- 
 ing of the indifference of many of the Porto Rican doctors 
 said, "If the doctors of this island would take a lesson 
 of generosity, charity, and Christianity from this hospital, 
 the poor Porto Rican people would not be trodden upon 
 and die by the hundreds from lack of proper care." 
 
 A patient said, "I knew that nurses were useful but I did 
 not understand their real value until I came to this hospital." 
 
 A doctor's testimony is, "As a member of the Board of Ex- 
 aminers, I can certify that the majority of nurses who 
 pass the examinations yearly come from the Presbyterian 
 Hospital." 
 
 Spiritual Manifestations. The religious work is ap- 
 preciated along with the medical. Our missionary writes: 
 "I must not fail to make my rounds in the wards every day, 
 to read the Bible, and talk to the patients, for when I went 
 in this morning after an absence of three days, with one 
 accord, in both the men's and women's wards, they said: 'Oh, 
 you have not been in to read the Bible to us for such a 
 long time. Please come every day.' " 
 
 2. The Polytechnic Institute. Some months ago the 
 editor of the New York Herald was in Porto Rico and 
 visited the Polytechnic Institute. When he returned to the 
 States he wrote the following editorial in his paper: 
 
 Perhaps the most significant fact just now in the prog- 
 ress of Porto Rico is the swift and somewhat astonishing 
 development of a great institution for the higher education, 
 both academic and technical, near San German, in the south- 
 western part of the Island. In one of the most beautiful 
 hill-surrounded sites which the imagination can conceive — 
 a tropical version of Williamstown, Massachusetts, with a 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 63 
 
 climate that without irreverence may be described as heav- 
 enly — there is growing with tropical rapidity the future 
 University of the Antilles, the school at present known as 
 the Polytechnic Institute of Porto Rico. Its destiny is as 
 obvious as its history is amazing. It promises to be for 
 the long future the source of culture and the central seat 
 of the liberal arts not only for Porto Rico but for other 
 Antillean Islands and for a considerable part of Latin 
 Central and South America. 
 
 It happens that it was just one year ago to-day that 
 the Legislature of Porto Rico conferred upon the existing 
 school at San German the full university functions. Under 
 the auspices of the Presbyterian Board the school had been 
 opened seven years before with a single student on its rolls. 
 Under the direction of Rev. J. W. Harris, a Texan of 
 large vision, indomitable energy, and a very remarkable 
 practical faculty for realizing ideals, it has already become 
 a university in the true sense, occupying a campus of 120 
 acres with an adequate scheme of future physical develop- 
 ment already matured by the architects to whose aesthetic 
 perceptions New York owes the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monu- 
 ment on Riverside Drive ; and it is affording through compe- 
 tent professional teachers a thorough education, both aca- 
 demic and technical, to nearly 300 students of both sexes. 
 The promise of the institution and the quick recognition of 
 its importance to the future of the Caribbean people is 
 shown, perhaps better than in any other way, by the cir- 
 cumstance that nearly four times as many students as are 
 admitted are turned away from San German because of 
 present lack of housing facilities. 
 
 The plan of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto Rico, that 
 is to say, the University of the Antilles of the future, con- 
 templates buildings which accommodate 1200 boarding stu- 
 dents and their teachers, at a cost of $2,000,000, and an 
 endowment of $6,000,000 for the same. Among all the 
 college and university drives now on, and their name is 
 legion and their respective claims are indisputable, none is 
 urged more worthily than this from down amid the royal 
 palms. Certainly none appeals more directly to sympathetic 
 imagination alive to the possibilities of Latin American de- 
 velooment, and concerned, for reasons either of philanthropy 
 
64 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 or of American patriotism, or, again, of enlightened selfish- 
 ness, that Porto Rico shall have every opportunity which 
 northern good will and generous northern pockets can afford. 
 
 The daily program of the Institute will reveal the general 
 character of the work done. 
 
 ONE day's life in THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF 
 PORTO RICO 
 
 5.30 A.M. First Bell — All students get up. 
 
 5.45 A.M. Second Bell. 
 
 5.55 A.M. Third Bell — All aboard for dining hall. 
 
 6.00-6.30 A.M. Breakfast. Girls cook and serve all meals 
 in a main dining room. 
 
 6.30-7.00 A.M. Morning prayers. At this service daily 
 readings are assigned so as to complete 
 the entire Bible during the year. 
 
 7.15 A.M. The lower grades of grammar and high-school 
 classes report for work. The boys do all 
 the farm, house, and road building work 
 and the girls take care of their own 
 house, wash, and iron for the whole 
 school, and cook and serve all the meals. 
 
 8.00 A.M. The more advanced classes of grammar and 
 high school begin classroom work. 
 
 12.00 Noon. Dinner is served. 
 
 1. 00 P.M. Students who were in the classroom during the 
 morning report for work while those who 
 worked their three hours during morning 
 come to class work. 
 
 4.00 P.M. Students are free until supper time. They spend 
 these two hours in play or study, as they 
 choose. 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 65 
 
 6.00 P.M. Supper time. 
 
 6.30 P.M. Recreation in walking and talking. 
 
 7.00 P.M. Study, in preparation for next day's classes, be- 
 gins. Those whose daily average is 85 
 per cent or more are allowed to study 
 in their rooms. All others have to come 
 to study halls where they study under 
 the direction of teachers. 
 
 9.15 P.M. First Bell for retiring. 
 
 9.25 P.M. Second Bell for retiring. 
 
 9.30 P.M. Third Bell. All lights out and students are in 
 bed and quiet. 
 
 The Polytechnic Institute is doing three worth-while 
 things for the Porto Rican people. 
 
 (a) It is teaching the dignity of labor. Born in the Porto 
 Rican from Spanish traditions is the idea that labor is a 
 misfortune meant only for those of whom it is required by 
 necessity. The Polytechnic Institute has met this stubborn 
 prejudice by requiring that its students devote three hours 
 a day to the manual labor which must needs be done in 
 the institution and about the grounds, the boys employed 
 in the construction of Institute buildings (all the buildings 
 being done by student labor), caring for the garden produce 
 and "finca" or farm work, the girls using their required 
 hours of work in cooking, sewing, caring for the laundry, 
 and so on. 
 
 About sixty per cent cannot pay tuition, and only about 
 twenty-five per cent meet all their own expenses through 
 supporting parents, but all must work, rich and poor alike, 
 no allowance being made for the labor, it being considered 
 as part of their training — the surprising feature of which 
 is that the students offer no objection whatever, whether 
 they break stone, carry mortar, plant sugar cane, or wash 
 
66 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 dishes. "The head, the heart, the hand" — are all well 
 educated at San German, and that the last is not least in 
 consideration has brought the Institute under the most 
 enthusiastic approval of all educators in Porto Rico. 
 
 (b) It is helping to solve the question of sex. In Porto 
 Rico the minds of men are erotic, so the sexes are usually 
 separated. Some churches recognizing this situation seat 
 their men on one side and their women on the other side of 
 their auditoriums. 
 
 The Polytechnic Institute, following the policy of all our 
 Porto Rican missions, recognizes the need of meeting this 
 problem with straightforward Christian teaching, expecting 
 its pupils to be Christians in thought and deed, ignoring 
 the unnatural limitations of the past, and they have not had 
 the slightest trouble. It has the distinction of being the 
 only dormitory school on a coeducational basis in Latin 
 America. 
 
 (c) It is helping to meet the need of education. In no 
 school in the island is there a better course of study — a 
 truth verified by the fact that for three years consecutively 
 the graduates of San German in taking teachers' examina- 
 tions received marks superior to those of any high school on 
 the island. A college course will be started when the neces- 
 sary recitation halls have been erected. Already students 
 having heard of San German have come from points as far 
 distant as Santo Domingo and Colombia, and with the 
 equipment which is being gradually supplied, this institu- 
 tion bids fair to do a great work not only for Porto Rico but 
 for the whole of the West Indies. 
 
 3. Churches and Mission Houses. Again the Presby- 
 terian Church is rendering a service to Porto Rico through 
 its churches and neighborhood houses, such as those at 
 Aguadilla and Mayaguez. Through the churches the gospel 
 is brought to the people, and through the neighborhood 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 67 
 
 houses the workers showing the people by precept and ex- 
 ample how to live, add to their usefulness by teaching lace- 
 making, embroidery, basket-weaving, and drawn work, arts 
 in which Porto Ricans are especially adept. Let us take for 
 example the Marina Missions at Mayaguez. 
 
 The Community Work at Mayaguez. Picture the 
 scene: a densely populated triangular two acres of one-story 
 houses along the coast, broiling under a tropical sun. Living 
 conditions among the two hundred and fifty people that 
 crowd this triangle are about as bad as they can be. Often 
 several families live in a house that is really too small for 
 one family. There are no conveniences of civilized life and 
 practically no sanitation. Such is the setting of the Marina 
 Mission in Mayaguez. 
 
 The mission conducts a church under the care of a 
 Porto Rican pastor and near the church the Marina Neigh- 
 borhood House. The Neighborhood House shelters an in- 
 dustrial school, a kindergarten, and a day nursery and is 
 the headquarters for a visiting nurse. The industrial school 
 has organized the Porto Rican girls of the neighborhood 
 under the direction of a capable instructor who teaches them 
 to make drawn work and embroidery. The beauty of this 
 handwork is said to be unsurpassed. The girls are paid and 
 the product is sold throughout the United States. Each 
 morning the industrial school begins with a Bible lesson. 
 Other lessons are introduced as the work permits. The 
 kindergarten and primary work are very much like that in 
 any American settlement house with the exception that the 
 week-day work of the Neighborhood House is more closely 
 allied with the Church than that of the usual settlement 
 house. 
 
 The day nursery of this mission would of itself justify 
 the whole undertaking. The community is desperately poor 
 and every woman who can must "work out" day after day 
 
68 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 leaving her children at home. Since the establishment of 
 the day nursery the children are left at the Neighborhood 
 House and are cared for by two faithful Porto Rican women 
 until the mothers return at night. 
 
 The visiting nurse cares for the cases that come to the 
 mission and then goes out to the community, visiting the 
 sick, relieving pain, and bringing cheer wherever she goes. 
 The needs that challenge her and the difficulties that must 
 be overcome are illustrated in this tj^ical instance. Not 
 long ago she answered a call to attend a sick child. She 
 found the child and its mother in a little eight by ten room 
 surrounded by twelve other persons who had come in 
 mistaken kindness or in thoughtless curiosity and were tak- 
 ing the air which the child so much needed. The child was 
 gasping for breath. 
 
 Unfinished Tasks. Thus the Church is one of the 
 great factors in the making over of an old civilization into 
 a modern Christian land. These are results which have 
 been accomplished; what remains then to be done? Well, 
 what is it that seems never done in a Roman Catholic coun- 
 try? /What is it that is so hard to get deep down in the 
 subconscious parts of a Romanist's life? Those who have 
 labored among them instantly reply: A true understanding 
 of the real nature of Christianity. The temperance question 
 you can solve, political questions you can settle, but here is 
 a problem ever before the Church — to show a people priest- 
 ridden for over four centuries, what Christianity is. 
 
 It is this which makes our work in Porto Rico a work of 
 patience; but we have no cause to complain, the work has 
 been just started, and we mean to speak to these people and 
 keep speaking to them in the only language that they can 
 understand, the language of human conduct, the language of 
 unselfish deeds, the language of broad, wholesome institu- 
 tions which lift the multitudes until they realize that Chris- 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 69 
 
 tianity is not a system of rites, but a kind of life to be 
 lived here and now — a life that seeks to reproduce the 
 spirit and the purpose and the method of Jesus. 
 
 Finish the Polytechnic Institute. So it becomes clear 
 to us that in line with revealing to Porto Rico what the 
 nature of Christianity is, the school at San German which 
 when completed will be a center of much needed illumination 
 in Porto Rico must be pushed steadily forward. Six dormi- 
 tories for boys, six for girls; five recitation halls, a library, 
 administration buildings, a domestic science hall, a manual- 
 training shop, a teachers' home — how like music it all falls 
 upon Porto Rican ears! — people who have had only the 
 crudest and most elementary schools, now given modern 
 equipment; scores who were once unsuccessful applicants, 
 now enrolled in the student body soon to be happy in their 
 pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 And with a hospital containing 175 beds and a force of 
 trained nurses, not only will the Polytechnic Institute be an 
 educational power but a medical center, a hospital for the 
 entire western end of the island. No greater blessing could 
 possibly be bestowed upon that beautiful isle. Let us finish 
 the task. 
 
 An Independent Church in Porto Rico. One other 
 and no less important task remains, that of making the 
 Church independent. The Porto Ricans are planning a 
 general increase in their contributions to gain financial inde- 
 pendence in ten years. If they succeed they may be the 
 first missionary population to do it, and again this small 
 island will be a trail maker. The more difficult work is that 
 of producing a native ministry that is so thoroughly evangeU- 
 cal as to be trusted with independence. 
 
 Porto Ricans can preach; by their oratorical gifts they 
 can keep the attention of a crowd when the American with 
 no such pyrotechnics will utterly lose out, but it is so diffi- 
 
70 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 cult for those who have known only the priesthood to under- 
 stand what is required of a consecrated Christian minister: 
 Unconsciously, in becoming pastors they feel after priestly 
 authority, love the place of significance, are somewhat 
 materialistic, and can rarely stand the test of discipleship 
 which demands a willingness to suffer, to be humble, self- 
 forgetful in pastoral as well as pulpit service. Do not blame 
 them; these are the heritage of Romanism, but with in- 
 creased earnestness turn your support toward the faculty of 
 the Evangelical Seminary, and pray God that in the training 
 of these promising young men, the older men may so reveal 
 God that like Paul they may ever retain the vision and, 
 with that fine enthusiasm of which the Porto Rican is so 
 capable, preach the living God to the multitudes. 
 
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AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 71 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. What is the population of Porto Rico? How long 
 
 has it belonged to the United States? What in- 
 dependent sign of progressive spirit has it already 
 displayed? 
 
 2. Describe the Hospital at San Juan as to size, medical 
 
 and religious service. What is the value of its 
 Nurses' Training School? 
 
 3. When was the Polytechnic Institute at San German 
 
 established? What is its present enrollment? Its 
 equipment? Sketch its daily program. Indicate its 
 threefold importance. 
 
 4. What religious work is being done in Porto Rico? Why 
 
 is it difficult to show Porto Ricans what Christianity 
 really is? 
 
 5. Describe the community work at Mayaguez. Why 
 should the Church conduct such work? 
 
 6. What is being done to develop a reliable native mifi- 
 
 istry? Why is this a difficult task? 
 
 7. What is the first thing to be done along educational 
 
 lines in the immediate future? 
 
CUBANS 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 0£ the Field 
 
 The population of Cuba is approximately 2^00,000. 
 Of these seventy per cent are white, thirteen per cent 
 Negroes, sixteen per cent mixed, and the rest are yel- 
 low. Cuba is the richest of the West Indies. 
 
 Millions of dollars of American capital are invested 
 in Cuban sugar plantations. How much will the 
 Christians of America invest in uplifting the lives of 
 the Cuban people? 
 
 Gambling and impurity are Cuba's national vices. 
 Her people are naturally temperate as to the use of 
 intoxicants, but American brewers have undertaken 
 to overcome this by the introduction of beer "kinder- 
 gartens." 
 
 Cuba has school facilities for only half of her 
 600,000 children. In the cities 49.9 per cent of the 
 children attend school; in the country districts 31.6 
 per cent. 
 
 American Volume — Inter church Survey. 
 
CUBANS 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 0£ the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board of. Home Missions 
 nine day schools are conducted teaching the underly- 
 ing principles of Christian democracy. These schools 
 are at Guines, Nueva Paz, Sancti Spiritus, Caibarien, 
 Camajuani, Placetas, Cabaiguan, Vedado, and Cardenas. 
 The total enrollment at these nine schools last year 
 was 1337. Fifty -two commissioned workers were en- 
 gaged to teach and care for them. In the Sunday 
 schools connected with these day schools 627 scholars 
 were enrolled. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions thirty-three 
 missionary centers (only eleven church buildings) 
 are being maintained to make ignorance give place to 
 enlightenment, fear to faith, and a dead Christ to a 
 living One. 
 
 Until these schools and churches are properly 
 equipped and manned our progress in the cities of 
 Cuba will be slow. And as for the great rural dis- 
 tricts, they are still untouched. 
 
(c) Cubans 
 
 After twenty years of work in Cuba the Presbyterian 
 Church faces a new epoch. The Disciples of Christ and the 
 Southern Assembly of the Presbyterian Church have with- 
 drawn and requested us to continue and enlarge their work. 
 This important territory having the three greatest provinces, 
 Havana, Santa Clara, and Matanzas, is now dependent 
 upon us. Within this territory is found Cuba's greatest 
 population, wealth, and commerce. There are 33 mission 
 centers, served by 26 workers. Our churches enroll 1980 
 members and our Sunday schools 2784 pupils. These mis- 
 sions contributed $8343 toward their own support last year. 
 Of the 33 missions, only 11 have buildings. 
 
 Educational Work. The Woman's Board maintains 
 9 mission schools in Cuba with a total enrollment of 1557 
 boys and girls. Fifty-five teachers are devoting themselves 
 to the spiritual, physical, and mental care of these young 
 Cubans. In one succinct sentence Mrs. F. S. Bennett has 
 described the purpose of the educational work in Cuba, 
 "The mission school is in Cuba not to make Americans, but 
 to make Christian Cubans." No one can doubt this who 
 visits one of these schools. Select any school at random. 
 Very likely it will be taught by a young Cuban woman who 
 has herself graduated from the mission school. In the class- 
 room work as well as in the assembly you will hear a 
 strong national note struck. You will see the Cuban chil- 
 dren lined up in a hollow square saluting the Cuban flag. 
 You will hear them sing the Cuban national anthem. These 
 Cuban schools are schools of democracy. Some of the 
 pupils are from poor homes, others are children of bank 
 
 74 
 
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AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 75 
 
 presidents, mayors, physicians, and well-to-do business men. 
 The children pay tuition. They buy their own books, so 
 that the schools are partially self-supporting. In some cases 
 all expenses, except the salaries of the teachers, are met from 
 the tuition fund. It is the natural outgrowth of these mis- 
 sion schools that an institution of higher learning should now 
 be demanded. To meet this demand a school recently 
 turned over to us by the Presbyterian Church South is 
 being developed into a Normal school at Cardenas, where 
 more than 500 young people are now in training. In addi- 
 tion to this another well-equipped training school is being 
 planned and will be located at Sancti Spiritus. 
 
 Religious Work, in Cuba is under the inspiring leader- 
 ship of Rev. E. A. Odell. Take two examples of this work. 
 Here is the town of Cabaiguan, of 4000 people. The pastor 
 is a Cuban. In addition to his church he has a school of 
 168 children with 6 teachers. The school is almost self- 
 supporting. The church is small but there is a Sunday 
 school of 85. The influence of the pastor is strong in the 
 community and from his school and church he is sending 
 many groups of young people to the National Institutes 
 and to the University of Havana. 
 
 Twenty-five miles from Cabaiguan is Sancti Spiritus, a 
 romantic old city dating back to the year 15 14. The popu- 
 lation is about 17,000. The Presbyterian Church here is a 
 beautiful building (the only church building which the 
 Board of Home Missions has erected in Cuba in ten years) 
 but it is not so much the beauty of the building that appeals 
 as the beauty of the results the church is accomplishing. 
 It is rendering a service not only to its own community but 
 to the Protestant cause throughout Cuba. For the last 
 three years an institute patterned after the one at North- 
 field, Massachusetts, has been held in the Sancti Spiritus 
 church each summer. Workers from various parts of the 
 
/ 
 
 76 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 island gather for ten days to talk over their problems and 
 seek new visions to renew their courage. 
 
 Perhaps the most concrete illustration of the sort of last- 
 ing work the church of Sancti Spiritus is doing in its com- 
 munity lies in the story of a photograph before the author. 
 It is a photograph taken twelve years ago of a boys' Sunday- 
 school class of this church. They are bright, upstanding 
 boys. They finished their training at Sancti Spiritus and 
 each went his own way according to his talent and inclina- 
 tion. Boy No. I is continuing his studies in the United 
 States. Boy No. 2 is now private secretary to the mayor 
 of the city of Sancti Spiritus. Boy No. 3 has graduated 
 from the University of Havana and is now a practicing 
 physician in his home town. Boy No. 4 took three years 
 advanced schooling at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, and 
 returned to become manager of a bank in Cuba. Boy No. 5 
 is in charge of a large sugar plantation. Boy No. 6 after 
 three years further schooling in the United States is now 
 an accountant in the New York City National Bank at 
 Sancti Spiritus. Boy No. 7 is continuing his studies in Mount 
 Hermon. Boy No. 8 graduated from an American college 
 and is now taking a medical course in Miami University, 
 preparing to be a medical missionary. And remember that 
 this was but one class of eight boys in the mission school and 
 Sunday school at Sancti Spiritus. More than 200 such 
 boys are enrolled the year round. 
 
 Unfinished Tasks in Cuba. The demand for the edu- 
 cational and religious help which the Presbyterian Church 
 has extended to Cuba is beyond the capacity of our present 
 equipment and personnel to supply. The schools are re- 
 quired to turn away students seeking admission. Sometimes 
 parents are so insistent that their children be admitted that 
 they will not be satisfied until the principal has actually 
 taken them through the school and shown them that every 
 
AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 77 
 
 available desk and place for a desk is occupied. One of the 
 teachers in one of the schools was asked about the location 
 of a proposed new building. He replied, "Put it where you 
 wish, the children will follow you, for there is no other school 
 in the town that can compete with you." 
 
 Rev. R. L. Wharton, the General Superintendent of the 
 AVoman's Board work in Cuba, reports: 
 
 In at least three cases groups of citizens have come to us 
 offering very substantial help financially provided we would 
 give them a school. In one instance the citizens themselves 
 undertook to establish a school but after a few months 
 confessed their failure and made the significant statement 
 that the only people who could establish and maintain the 
 school they needed were the Presbyterians. Such facts as 
 these show that there is a place for us and that our work 
 is needed. The public-school system theoretically is good 
 but in practice the teachers themselves confess that it is 
 not by any means supplying the needs of the children. 
 Actually there are eight hundred classrooms on the island 
 closed for the lack of teachers and that in spite of the fact 
 that the salaries paid are phenomenal in comparison with 
 the requirements made upon the teachers. Within the past 
 two years a new standard has been established by the 
 public-school authorities which it is to be hoped will improve 
 greatly conditions in the system within a brief period of 
 years. According to the new plan normal schools have al- 
 ready been established in four of the six provinces and only 
 normal graduates will be employed in the schools. If this 
 is adhered to and effective preparation is given in these 
 normal schools certainly it should mean a long step forward 
 for the youth of Cuba eventually. 
 
 One of our own great outstanding needs is trained 
 teachers and we are earnestly hoping that before another 
 year we may have a department in operation in some of 
 our schools with at least a degree of normal work. Teach- 
 ers! Teachers! more teachers, consecrated teachers, is the 
 cry that comes up from every side, men and women who 
 love children, and who know how to impart knowledge and 
 
78 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 mold character. Many scores of opportunities have been 
 lost in Cuba by a failure to go forward when God opened 
 the door. Right now we must decide whether we are going 
 to do the same thing educationally or not. The doors in 
 this sense are wide open. 
 
 In Cuba as in Porto Rico our greatest task is to give to the 
 people a true understanding of the real nature of Chris- 
 tianity, to bring them into close fellowship with God, to free 
 their whole life from fear and to make it conform to Jesus' 
 law of love and service. To fulfill this task adequately we 
 must provide our present stations with suitable equipment, 
 remembering that two thirds of them are still without build- 
 ings. We must train a native ministry and to this end must 
 develop the training school and the college. We must pro- 
 vide helpful literature. When we have done these things 
 we will have opened the way in Cuba for a free church and 
 a free school and the blessings of Christian liberty. We will 
 have helped the Cubans vdn their spiritual battle against 
 ignorance, superstition, and fear. 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. What is the public-school situation in Cuba? 
 
 2. Describe a Cuban mission school. 
 
 3. How evident is the need of new schools? 
 
 4. Illustrate the religious work already established in 
 
 Cuba. 
 
 5. What is the task remaining? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 
 
INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 Of the Field 
 
 The composition oi the American city is the result 
 of the three processes by which it has secured its peo- 
 ple: rural emigration, alien immigration, and the in- 
 crease due to births. Each of these processes has 
 created a corresponding group in the American city: 
 the rural emigrant is the result of the i£rst; the for- 
 eigner of the second, and the indigenous city folk of 
 the third. 
 
 The thing which differentiates these three groups 
 most is the fact that in childhood the persons that be- 
 long to them grew up in entirely different environ- 
 ments. They think in fundamentally different terms, 
 and their usual reactions toward situations and facts 
 are the result of these traditional viewpoints. 
 
 In the work of the city the rural emigrant, the alien, 
 and the city-born all find a common interest. Drawn 
 together in industry they constitute the industrial 
 group. This group is the Church's most difficult prob- 
 lem. The fact that the Protestant churches are the 
 product of the earlier rural period .of American life 
 accounts largely for the inactivity and silence of the 
 churches during great industrial struggles. Large 
 sections of working groups have become alienated 
 from the Church. They will continue to be alienated 
 from it until it intelligently interprets the economic 
 evolution taking place in this country and fearlessly 
 stands for social justice and economic fair play. 
 
 A study of one thousand workingmen of all kinds 
 revealed the fact that the Church is much less attrac- 
 tive to them than is any other "social" institution. 
 
 These workingmen are not particularly hostile to 
 the Church; they are simply indifferent. 
 
 American Volume — Inter church Survey. 
 
INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 The Board of Home Missions is endeavoring to 
 meet this challenge in a variety of places, tongues, and 
 ways. It is cooperating with sixteen greater city 
 presbyteries from New York to San Francisco in 
 many forms of pioneering church and community 
 work. Last year loi ministers, twenty lay workers, 
 and forty-nine women visitors and community workers 
 ministered in seventeen languages, to fifty national- 
 ities, through mission stations, neighborhood houses, 
 community centers, and foreign-language churches. 
 
 The eighteen self-sustaining synods, and ten self- 
 sustaining presbyteries, which together embrace the 
 great industrial regions of the country, each carries on 
 their work in addition to the above. This work is 
 treated briefly in the following pages. 
 
 Under the Board of Publication and Sabbath School 
 Work, 40 colporteurs are engaged in as many different 
 communities, getting the Bible into the hands and 
 hearts of foreign-speaking people in this country. 
 These colporteurs sold last year 6150 Bibles in other 
 languages, and visited 44,820 families. 
 
 Worthy as all this work is, it only touches the 
 fringes of the task. The bulk of the business is not 
 only un&nished — it is barely begun. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 C. The Task as a Whole. Our task is to save men's 
 spirits. Save them from what and for what? It is to save 
 them from selfishness, from materialism, from low ideals, 
 from burning up in the fires of passion and greed, of hatred 
 and self-indulgence. It is to save them for usefulness, for 
 service, and for the development of all the divine possi- 
 bilities God has given them. The Christian way to do 
 this — that is, the way of Christ — is to get men, through 
 him, so connected with God that their spirits and his are 
 one. 
 
 It is difficult enough to accomplish this with men who 
 live in the country, close to nature. It is a vastly different 
 problem in industrial communities amid the roar of machin- 
 ery, crowded tenements, and the incessant struggle of com- 
 petitive commerce. , Unnatural living conditions, vicious en- 
 vironment, unjust working conditions, lack of educational 
 facilities, and preachers of hatred often combine to wreak 
 havoc with men's spirits even though their bodies may be 
 able to stand the strain. ! 
 
 Take for example an immigrant from Italy or Poland or 
 Hungary. He comes to this country not knowing our 
 language, our customs, our methods of government, or any 
 of the thousand and one things that we Americans have 
 known from our youth. He comes from a country where 
 education was limited to the few, where the government was 
 not democratic, and where the church was Catholic and 
 
 82 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 83 
 
 often corrupt. Arriving in a strange country he first runs 
 the gauntlet of the petty thieves who have found the immi- 
 grant ''easy picking." Some of these petty thieves run 
 lodging houses where the immigrant is charged exorbitant 
 prices, some call themselves "immigrant bankers," some are 
 so-called "guides," some are lawyers who claim to be able 
 to render services that they cannot perform or charge out- 
 rageously for the services they do render, some are quack 
 doctors, and some are just plain crooks who under pretense 
 that they can correct some alleged error in the immigrant's 
 papers and thus prevent his being deported, get their foul 
 hands upon the newcomer's small capital. Finally when this 
 gauntlet has been run the immigrant finds himself in an in- 
 dustrial center. He secures a job in a steel mill or a woolen 
 mill or a slaughterhouse. All day he works amid the din of 
 machinery. When his work is done he goes to his home 
 in the "colony" which is usually crowded with other immi- 
 grants like himself. He has little or no contact with Chris- 
 tian Americans and his ideas are naturally molded largely 
 by what he hears from other immigrants. 
 
 There are 15,000,000 foreign-born in this country. Three 
 fourths of them live in the cities, and the great majority 
 work in large industrial plants. As this is being written 
 about 3000 more immigrants are coming into America every 
 day. What chance has the Church of getting these men con- 
 nected with God if it simply hires a hall and employs a 
 preacher to conduct the same sort of services used in a 
 country church among American farmers? No chance 
 at all. 
 
 The Situation in One Typical Industrial Center. — 
 Greater New York. For instance, take the Metropolitan 
 Area of Greater New York. Rev. Kenneth Miller, di- 
 rector of our coordinated Presbyterian efforts in New York, 
 sums up the situation for us: He says: 
 
84 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 The home mission task in the Metropolitan Area involves 
 the Christianization of a city of nine million souls. So vast 
 are the problems involved, so stupendous the difficulties 
 encountered, that it is difficult to imagine the metropolis 
 of the New World as a Christian city, transformed into the 
 city of the living God. And yet such is our goal, such our 
 faith, and such our purpose, and of the responsibility for 
 its accomplishment the Presbyterian Church has a large 
 share, and yet only dimly realized and feebly borne. 
 
 The great outstanding problem of the Metropolitan Area 
 is the problem of Christianizing the foreigner, for he makes 
 up four fifths of its population. The most baffling and per- 
 plexing, and at the same time the most urgent task, that lies 
 before us, is concerned with the Jews of Greater New York, 
 — nearly two million souls. "But they are Jews," some one 
 says, "they have their own religion. What have we to do 
 with them?" But the fact of the matter is they have not 
 their own religion. The percentage of apostasy among the 
 Jews of New York is said to be far in excess of that pre- 
 vailing in the Catholic and Protestant churches. Some esti- 
 mate that fully ninety per cent of the Jews of New York 
 have cut absolutely with the synagogue. The most casual 
 observer must see that it is with the Jew that New York's 
 materialism, pleasure madness, money-loving, is most ram- 
 pant. The ghetto is manufacturing unbelievers and radi- 
 cals so fast that the synagogue, church, and constructive 
 American institutions are simply swamped. The Jewish 
 youth is growing up and assuming a more and more influen- 
 tial position in the commercial and even intellectual life 
 of the city, and is growing up with few or no ideals of 
 any sort, not to mention Christian ideals. On the simple 
 ground of humanity, because the future of our city and 
 country is at stake, we must accomplish the spiritualization, 
 the Christianization of the Jew. It is not a question of 
 proselyting; it is a question of bringing within reach of the 
 transforming influences of religion a large mass of people 
 that are now entirely alienated therefrom. The Presby- 
 terian Church, like all Protestant churches in America, has 
 approached this task timidly, half-heartedly, and thus far, 
 unsuccessfully. The first task is to break down Jewish 
 prejudice against Christianity and Christians. Simultane- 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 85 
 
 ously with that there must be approached the task of 
 building up positive ideals and standards, in accordance 
 with the teachings of the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth. The 
 Board of Home Missions is conducting two significant ex- 
 periments of work for Jews, one in East New York (Browns- 
 ville) and one in Newark, at the Bethany Community 
 Center. Both projects are handicapped most seriously by 
 lack of proper equipment, and for several years now the 
 workers have been living for the time when they would be 
 housed in an adequate fashion. We cannot hope to de- 
 termine just how we should discharge our duty to the Jew 
 unless we give a fair trial to the various methods of ap- 
 proach, and convince our Jewish brethren of our sincerity, 
 and ourselves that we can, as Christians, accomplish much 
 for the spiritualization of the Jewish element of our popula- 
 tion. 
 
 The work among the other foreign nationalities in Greater 
 New York is equally incommensurate with the magnitude 
 of the task. The American Parish, on the upper East Side 
 of Manhattan, under the leadership of Rev. Howard V. 
 Yergin, is about as efficient and thoroughgoing a piece of 
 home missionary work as we have in this country. And yet 
 Mr. Yergin himself admits that the influence of these four 
 churches and two neighborhood houses upon the great 
 Italian community in which they are situated is scarcely 
 noticeable. The fact is. New York could well have a church 
 and parish house on every city block. The small share that 
 the Presbyterian Church has in the Christianization of this 
 community is well taken care of. But the point is, it is 
 pitiably small as compared with the task. If we could re- 
 produce the American parish one hundred times, we should 
 be making a contribution somewhat worthy of the standing 
 and resources of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 So with the Czecho- Slovaks. In New York fully seventy- 
 five per cent of the forty thousand Czecho- Slovaks have 
 broken absolutely with Catholicism, and have become "free- 
 thinkers." Here is a parish of 30,000. And yet the Pres- 
 byterian Church, through the combined efforts of mission 
 churches, and the missionary endeavors of wealthy churches, 
 has been able to muster together some three thousand only. 
 Here the Protestant Church is ten per cent efficient at best. 
 
86 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 In the Metropolitan Area is included such cities as New- 
 ark, Jersey City, Paterson, Passaic, Elizabeth, and Yonkers, 
 any one of which presents a home mission task of great 
 proportions, and in none of which, excepting Newark, has 
 there been any realization of the responsibility of the Church 
 for the Christianization of its own city. Newark presents 
 the largest problem, and here a beginning has been made 
 by the establishment of Friendly Centers and Neighborhood 
 Houses. But in none of the other cities has the Church at 
 large faced its responsibility and tried to meet it. 
 
 Let Robert W. Anthony, chief of our missionary forces 
 in Brooklyn and Queens, speak for those Boroughs. 
 
 Brooklyn Borough has doubled its population in the last 
 twenty years and now boasts almost 2,500,000 people. Half 
 a century ago it was known as "The City of Churches"; 
 to-day it is "The City of the Unchurched Masses." Brook- 
 lyn with fewer people thari Manhattan leads in registered 
 voters and school children. '/» the face of this tidal wave of 
 population the Presbyterian Church has remained stationary 
 in membership and shows a heavy loss in Sunday-school 
 enrollment. 
 
 Why has this happened? Immigrants, speaking more 
 than forty different languages, have poured into Brooklyn 
 until 600,000 Jews and more than 200,000 Italians, to say 
 nothing of other large racial groups, live in the Borough. 
 The older Protestant constituency with its culture and 
 wealth is rapidly moving out of Brooklyn. The majority of * 
 the church buildings are antiquated, well suited to the 
 needs of fifty years ago, but not equipped for modern com- 
 munity service. The usual staff is a solitary, underpaid 
 minister, with no assistant of any kind. 
 
 With a static membership, ill-adapted buildings, and 
 rapidly changing conditions in every parish, the Presbyterian 
 churches of Brooklyn are not meeting the needs of to-day. 
 The prospects for ministering to the added hundreds of thou- 
 sands who are coming to Brooklyn as a result of the open- 
 ing of new rapid transit lines, are dark, unless heavy rein- 
 forcements come soon. 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 87 
 
 Queens Borough with 466,459 people exceeds Manhattan, 
 Bronx, and Richmond in area, and is destined to have a 
 larger population than Brooklyn. With its unrivaled land 
 and water transportation it is the coming industrial center 
 of the East. Its period of maximum expansion is just be- 
 ginning. Our churches are badly located, weak in numbers 
 and for the most part miserable in equipment. Far less than 
 half of the children in Queens can be found enrolled in any 
 Sunday school. Communities with thousands of inhabi- 
 tants have no modern church buildings of any Protestant 
 denomination. 
 
 With its sister Borough of Brooklyn, Queens will control 
 the political destinies of Greater New York for years to 
 come. The two boroughs, because of the present situation 
 and future prospects, constitute one of the most important 
 mission fields in the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 The old village t5^e of church and ministry cannot 
 Christianize the unchurched migrants from the city. Our 
 present force and equipment are overwhelmed by the task. 
 
 Why Should Christians Concern Themselves with 
 Industrial Problems? The answer to that question is: 
 We simply cannot help it. In the first place, industrial 
 problems are crowding in on every side in our daily life. 
 Whether we earn our living by producing or manufacturing 
 or distributing, we are constantly face to face with ques- 
 tions of human relationship, with competition with our fel- 
 lows, hours, conditions and wages of labor, dangers to life 
 and limb, and a thousand and one similar matters, every one 
 of which is going to be answered one way or another in 
 accordance with certain principles that underlie our thought 
 and action. 
 
 In the second place, Christianity is not simply a set of 
 sweet thoughts about heaven or even an insurance policy 
 against hell fire in the life to come. It is a kind of life — a 
 kind of life that seeks to reproduce the purpose and the 
 spirit and the principles of Jesus Christ. Among those 
 
88 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 principles there is none more revolutionary than his 
 reverence for human personality which grew out of his faith 
 in a divine Father dwelling in the human soul. The Chris- 
 tian who accepts this principle for his own life answers 
 accordingly the industrial questions that crowd upon him. 
 To the Christian, industrial questions are not isolated things 
 to be settled by arithemtic or even by economics, primarily. 
 They are human questions, involving the souls of men, and 
 must be settled always in that way which will be best for 
 the spirits of the men concerned,/^ 
 
 Evangelism and Social Service. In general, the vari- 
 ous attempts to make our industrial relationships conform 
 to Christian principles may be grouped into one or the 
 other of two classes: evangelism and social service. Evan- \ 
 gelism seeks to change environment through the individual \ 
 by getting that individual in connection with God. Social ] 
 service seeks to change the individual by bettering his en- i 
 vironment. Both evangelism and social service aim ulti- i 
 mately at the same goal — a Christian individual in aj 
 Christian community. Both ways are essential to reach the 
 goal. Jesus calling his disciples one by one — that was 
 evangelism. Jesus healing the sick, feeding the multitudes, 
 and cleansing the Temple of the money changers — that was 
 social service. 
 
 Not only are evangelism and social service aiming at the 
 same goal; neither will reach that goal without the help of 
 the other. Evangelism that is content to save individual 
 souls simply for their own sakes and without relation to 
 their conduct and their fellow workers, is simply pious self- 
 ishness. Social service that assumes that economic condi- 
 tions are the controlling factors of human life and that 
 increase of prosperity will solve human problems, is plain 
 foolishness. "Christianity is under no such illusion. It 
 knows that no change in the external machinery of the pro- 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 89 
 
 duction and distribution of wealth is sufficient to save 
 society. It realizes that wealth itself is only a tool, capable 
 of serving either worthy or ignoble ends, and that all turns 
 upon the spirit in which it is used." ^ 
 
 Pioneering. Because the Presbyterian Church has rec- 
 ognized that the spirits of men in industrial centers need 
 both an evangelistic and a social service ministry altogether 
 different from the traditional, it has pioneered in finding 
 new methods and in developing new programs. The Board 
 of Publication and Sabbath School Work and the Home 
 Board are each trying its own experiment, and in addi- 
 tion they have jointly been instrumental in establishing more 
 than 300 Daily Vacation Bible Schools, enrolling a total of 
 more than 20,000 boys and girls in a program of Bible 
 stories and memory verses, songs and games, handwork and 
 play, all under Christian leadership. 
 
 In twelve of the leading industrial centers of America the 
 local Presbyterian churches and the various national agen- 
 cies concerned, have organized Boards of church extension 
 or similar bodies to work out the common task of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in those centers — to save the spirits of 
 men. The work of these organizations is so new and so 
 little known by the Church at large, and yet so important 
 to this nation and to the Kingdom of God, that it is worth 
 setting down here a few of their enterprises. 
 
 In New York there are 11 Presbyterian centers among 
 Czecho- Slovaks, Italians, Magyars, and other immigrants. 
 Five congregations and 2 Neighborhood Houses in the poly- 
 glot upper East Side population, are federated in the Ameri- 
 can Parish. This parish maintains a large summer camp in 
 New Jersey. In the heart of the Bohemian section in New 
 York stand the John Hus Church and Neighborhood House, 
 
 ^ The Church and Industrial Reconstruction. Committee on the 
 War and the Religious Outlook. Association Press. 
 
90 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 constructed in Bohemian architecture and pioneering in 
 methods of Christian Americanization among these people. 
 On the lower East Side, in the heart of the Jewish section, 
 is the Labor Temple with a great social program of educa- 
 tion and service trying to interpret what is best in America 
 to a race of people who have seen only what is worst in this 
 country — our slums and our sweatshops. 
 
 In Brooklyn foreign-language work is being conducted 
 among Syrians, Poles, Lithuanians, French, Italians, Rus- 
 sians, Jews, and Czecho- Slovaks. Classes and clubs are be- 
 ing conducted in many centers throughout the year and 
 fifteen Daily Vacation Bible Schools are held in Presby- 
 terian churches during the summer. 
 
 Philadelphia has developed the largest Italian Presby- 
 terian Church in the country, a very interesting community 
 work among the Jews (Mizpah), and an aggressive com- 
 munity program at Barnes Memorial. Fifty-two hun- 
 dred and eighty-three children were enrolled in the 
 Presbyterian Daily Vacation Bible Schools in Philadelphia 
 last summer. A Wayside Rescue Mission is also main- 
 tained. 
 
 Three important social centers are being maintained in 
 Buffalo, and a new Neighborhood House is being erected 
 to accommodate the enlarged work of the Immigrant Aid 
 Bureau and Kindergarten at Lackawanna. 
 
 In Pittsburgh ten Daily Vacation Bible Schools, a mission- 
 ary training school, a rescue mission, a publication office, 
 an aggressive work among foreign-speaking peoples, and 
 three Negro missions, are all being maintained by the pres- 
 bytery. 
 
 In Baltimore twenty Daily Vacation Bible Schools, eight 
 continuation schools, three foreign language centers among 
 Italians, Bohemians, and Poles, one Negro center, one com- 
 munity church, and a large Jewish work, are the tangible 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 91 
 
 contributions of the Presbyterian churches through the 
 Church Extension Board of the Presbytery. 
 
 Cleveland has eleven Daily Vacation Bible Schools, four 
 Italian and one Magyar Presbyterian social centers, and the 
 Harkness Fresh Air camp which provides outings for more 
 than 500 children during the summer. Three special centers 
 are being developed at Woodland, North, and Firestone 
 Park. Each of these centers has a staff of workers and a 
 made-to-order program to fit the needs of the industrial 
 population which it serves. 
 
 In Detroit the presbytery conducts foreign language and 
 social work among Italians, Armenians, Magyars, and Poles. 
 It also conducts two neighborhood centers and one Negro 
 center and church. The children of its 10 Daily Vacation 
 Bible Schools represent fourteen different nationalities. 
 
 The Presbytery of Chicago reaches in their own language, 
 Italians, Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Assyrians, Hollanders, 
 Hungarians, Chinese, and twelve Spanish-speaking nation- 
 alities. Through the English language it reaches thirty-four 
 nationalities in such activities as English and civics clubs 
 and classes and the multiplied functions of a community 
 center. Neighborhood house and community center pro- 
 grams are being maintained at 19 points. Three Negro 
 centers are conducted and at three places there are special 
 efforts made to solve the Jewish problem. 
 
 On the Pacific Coast the most outstanding Presbyterian 
 cooperative effort is that conducted by the San Francisco 
 Presbytery, which maintains forty Dail}^ Vacation Bible 
 Schools, a summer camp, Young People's Conferences, a co- 
 operative system of evangelism, a church-building fellowship 
 of four hundred members contributing every time a home 
 mission church is built, and a practical and successful plan 
 of religious education and recruiting for the ministry. The 
 record of this presbytery last year showed a net growth of 
 
92 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 nine per cent in Church membership, twenty- four per cent 
 in Sunday-school enrollment, and sixty-eight per cent in 
 benevolences. 
 
 The Unfinished Task. The author asked the head of 
 Presbyterian Church Extension activities in eSch of these 
 industrial centers to write a statement on the unfinished 
 task of the Presbyterian Church in his particular center — 
 a statement that could be passed on to you in this book. 
 Each man kindly wrote his statement. They all wrote with- 
 out consulting each other, yet the statements are as alike 
 as peas in a pod. The following statement by Dr. Charles 
 L. Zorbaugh is as true for San Francisco, Chicago, New 
 York, and all the rest as it is for Cleveland for which it was 
 written: 
 
 The task is not likely to be finished as far ahead as any- 
 one can see. Eighty per cent of our population is either 
 foreign born or only one generation removed. You might 
 better say that our task is just started. The most obvious 
 thing to be said about the bulk of our work is it is very 
 new, just fairly begun. Our church extension organization, 
 our foreign work, our summer schools, our fresh-air camp, 
 our community demonstration, our neighborhood work are 
 all new, all within a decade, with much of the experimental 
 and nothing at all of finality about them. We actually feel 
 that we are at the beginning of things. We are forever 
 trying to keep up with the growth of the city. Our foreign 
 work is painfully experimental. We have only four stations 
 among the Italians and one among the Hungarians. I 
 believe in this work. I don't see how any man can do other- 
 wise. We are poor Christians if we try to dodge it. Yet it 
 is full of uncertainty and disappointments and meager visi- 
 ble results. It constitutes a great unfinished task for us. It 
 is only nine or ten years ago that we first began to think of 
 our duty to these new Americans. 
 
 Let us turn from the organizations to the missionaries 
 themselves and their work upon their fields. Let us take a 
 few examples. 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 93 
 
 Making a Beginning — Greeting the Immigrant at 
 Ellis Island. Lately the Presbyterian Church has es- 
 tablished a welfare worker on Ellis Island to see that as 
 many immigrants as possible are greeted by Christian 
 friendship and protected from the army of petty grafters 
 who prey upon the ignorance and bewilderment of the new- 
 comers. This welfare worker renders most of her service 
 to those immigrants who have been sent to the temporary 
 detention rooms because they have not sufficient funds to 
 proceed to their destination, or because expected relatives 
 have not called for them, or because they lack the proper 
 affidavits. Some have incomplete addresses or none at all. 
 Others have come with the intention of marrying at once and 
 need to be chaperoned to City Hall. Still others want em- 
 ployment, or must wait till some relative is removed from 
 the hospital. The welfare worker endeavors to complete the 
 insufficient address, to help secure employment, and to put 
 the immigrant in touch with the relative confined in the 
 hospital. Some of the more serious cases, such as those of 
 children under sixteen who have come to this country un- 
 accompanied, or of women who have lost their passports 
 during the voyage, require weeks of difficult follow-up work, 
 but the worker has her reward when the problem is at last 
 solved and the immigrant sent on his way rejoicing. 
 
 The Colporteurs. The colporteurs, or Bible men, are 
 taking the gospel to the people of many tongues in the 
 language of their native lands, not only at the port of entry 
 but in the many places of their final settlement throughout 
 our country. 
 
 A writer in one of our missionary magazines says: 
 
 Colporteurs belong to the constructive architectural corps | 
 of Kingdom builders who are digging the trenches in which 
 others lay foundations on which, in due time, are to be 
 built temples of God. 
 
94 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 The colporteur is not simply a book hawker, not merely a 
 commercial agent. If he were, it would not be dishonorable. 
 But he goes as a pioneer evangelist, a scout of the great 
 militant Church of Christ. He cooperates with the mis- 
 sionary. He goes to a town and visits every house. He 
 finds those who are interested and gives a list of names to 
 the nearest pastors. Sometimes he calls the people together 
 and preaches to them, so that when the pastor comes he finds 
 the church waiting for him to organize. He must work alone 
 a great deal of the time; he must travel the dusty roads in 
 the broiling sun; he must climb the mountains; he must 
 bear the burden and the heat of the day. 
 
 Experiences. There is no bar anywhere to the work 
 of the colporteur. He goes to every hamlet and every 
 house, even to the farthest corner of the little alley, his 
 aim being to leave the printed page containing the wonderful 
 story, in every home. His work cannot be measured by 
 figures nor by the number of visits. 
 
 One of our oldest colporteurs went to a lonely home in 
 an Ohio mining town, where only the wife of the miner was 
 at home, and being offered the Bible, she said that she could 
 not read; and that it was no use to buy the book for her 
 husband, as he spent his whole time with his comrades in 
 the saloon gambling and drinking. However, the colporteur 
 left the Bible in the home on trial. Within two months he 
 again visited this family. He was seen and recognized 
 by the woman while he was yet far from the house. She 
 went to meet him and began to tell him the story of a great 
 change in the life of her husband: "He noticed the book the 
 first day he came from work," she said. "He began to read 
 it and was so interested in it that he forgot to meet his 
 comrades in the saloon. He did the same thing the next 
 day, and has continued every day since. He does not go 
 to the saloon, does not gamble, does not drink, and is an 
 entirely changed man. Now I want to pay you for this 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 95 
 
 book. It is a great treasure in my home." When she was 
 told that one dollar was all that she owed, she protested and 
 said: "Only one dollar for this great book. Oh, please 
 accept at least two dollars. It is worth so much more to 
 
 me." 
 
 Personal Work. Another colporteur was visiting one of 
 the largest hospitals in Pittsburgh. He was conducted to the 
 bed of a Polish man whose arm was badly injured. The man 
 refused to have it amputated, although he knew that with- 
 out amputation he could not survive another day. He was 
 discouraged and preferred to die. The colporteur spoke 
 kindly to him and read the fourteenth chapter of John, and 
 prayed with him. The man spoke little, but tears were 
 noticed in his eyes. As they parted the colporteur left a 
 Polish New Testament on his bed. When he came the next 
 time, the patient was gone. His arm had been amputated 
 and he had recovered and left the hospital. In about six 
 months after this incident the colporteur was passing through 
 an alley when a one-armed man called from a window ask- 
 ing him to come in. He said: "You do not remember me 
 but I remember you. You visited me when I was in the 
 hospital. You prayed with me and you left this little book 
 on my bed. I read it and I want to tell you that through 
 this book I came to the knowledge of my Saviour and I 
 am a far happier man with one arm than I ever was with 
 two arms. Through references in this book I learned also 
 that there must be a bigger book, and I want to have it." 
 He then purchased a copy of the Polish Bible from the 
 colporteur. The colporteur has never met him since and 
 does not know of what church he is a member, but he 
 knows that he found the Book of life. 
 
 A Slovak Bible was left by one of our colporteurs in a 
 house where four men were gambling, and a woman was 
 serving]; beer. The coloorteur managed to leave a Bible 
 
96 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 in the house, asking the people to read it, promising that he 
 would call again sometime and see how they liked it. 
 
 However, he did not call until about a year after this 
 incident. When he opened the door he found the room in 
 perfect order, a clean cloth on the table, and if it had not 
 been for the Bible which was lying on the table, and which 
 he recognized, he would have thought that he entered the 
 wrong house. Husband and wife recognized the colporteur. 
 They related to him the story of the wonderful change in 
 their family life since they began to read the Bible. "This 
 book is now most precious to our home," the man said, 
 "no drinking or gambling is going on here any more. We 
 are trying to live according to the Word of God and we 
 cannot thank you enough for this book." 
 
 Results. The report of a single year's work of the 
 colporteurs will convey an idea of the far-reaching influence 
 of their labors. During the year ending March 31, 1920, 
 there were thirty-seven colporteurs engaged, some of them 
 serving only a portion of the year. Their reports show that 
 46,959 families were visited, and that most of them were 
 destitute of the Bible. They distributed by sale and 
 gift 6734 copies of the Scriptures, besides 12,818 other 
 religious books, and 123,010 tracts containing the gospel 
 message, in at least twenty different languages. 
 
 Building on a Colporteur's Foundation. Eight years 
 ago Rev. William J. Bell left Princeton Seminary to work 
 for a few weeks as an investigator on the Mesaba Range of 
 Northern Minnesota. He was a Minnesota boy and knew 
 the pioneer work of the late Frank Higgins, lumberjack 
 1 missionary of that state. His intention was to spend a few 
 weeks on Higgins' old trail and then to go abroad for a 
 year's study in Europe before returning to this country s 
 for missionary work. But what he found on Higgins' old 
 trail drove out of his head all notion of going to Europe or 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 97 
 
 anywhere else. He found that the 25,000 lumberjacks of 
 Higgins' day had been supplanted by 200,000 miners — 
 eighty-seven per cent of them foreign-born — representing 
 some twenty different nationalities. It was a country as un- 
 like America as Russia or Finland. 
 
 Bell began as an investigator, then worked as a colporteur 
 going from house to house, getting acquainted with the 
 people and winning his way into their hearts by his sincerity 
 and his friendliness. After a while he opened a Daily Vaca- 
 tion Bible School where six days a week through the summer 
 he taught the children of these foreigners songs, stories, 
 games, and handwork. The school soon became popular 
 with both children and parents. The next year he opened 
 another and then still others in various villages and ''loca- 
 tions" on the Mesaba and Vermilion Iron Ranges. Classes 
 and clubs for both men and women followed quickly. 
 
 Some months ago the writer visited Bell and for two or 
 three days hung on to his coat tails. He is a human dynamo. 
 Somehow he has been conducting educational and religious 
 work in twenty centers strung out along a hundred miles 
 of the Mesaba and Vermilion Ranges. And when in sum- 
 mer his vacation schools have finished their courses and 
 dismissed their 750 children, he rests himself conducting 
 camps for more than 500 children of immigrants. To be 
 sure he doesn't do it all himself. 
 
 "But where do you get your helpers?" 
 
 "Most of them are young immigrants who were members 
 of these classes themselves a few years ago. They go away 
 to college and university and then come back to serve their 
 own people here." 
 
 If a final proof of the efficacy of the methods of these 
 pathfinders was needed, it came one day in a classroom 
 conducted by a Finnish worker of Bell's staff. In the midst 
 of the devotional hour when all the children were assembled 
 
98 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 for songs and stories, an irate Finnish father burst into 
 the room and demanded between oaths that his son leave 
 the school at once and return to his own home. Quickly 
 the little teacher walked up to him and spoke to him quietly 
 in his own tongue. 
 
 "What! You are a Finn?" he exclaimed in their common 
 language. His anger gave way to wonder and then to en- 
 thusiasm as the little teacher told him about the school. 
 "Wait!" he said, and hurried out of the room. Five minutes 
 later he returned bringing his young daughter and handed 
 her over to the teacher to be enrolled. 
 
 "Bell," the writer said, as he prepared to return, "is there 
 anything I can do for you back East?" 
 
 "Recruit more workers for me," he said. "We are touching ,] 
 only the fringes of this job, and the I. W. W. and other} 
 radical organizations are spending many times as much 
 among these immigrants as we are." *■ 
 
 The Unfinished Task on the Iron Ranges. "What 
 do you want these trained workers for?" 
 
 "I want them to provide Christian leadership for these 
 people, to visit them in their homes, to make friends with 
 them, and personify for them all that is best in America 
 in the way of democracy, fellowship, and neighborliness. I 
 want leaders strong enough to command the respect and co- 
 operation of the school authorities, the mining companies, 
 the company doctors, municipal nurses, and company offi- 
 cials. I want leaders who understand the materials and 
 methods of Christian education and who can teach the young 
 people on week days as well as on Sundays. I could easily 
 use ten such leaders now in a territory here on the ranges 
 which is as yet absolutely untouched. I want leaders who 
 have executive power too, and who can help these people se- 
 cure neighborhood houses properly equipped, to carry on our 
 cooperative efforts in building a Christian American 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 99 
 
 democracy. Send me such leaders and I will promise 
 them — " 
 
 "Well, what will you promise them?" 
 
 "I will promise them a chance to invest their lives in 
 building up a great Christian country. I will promise them 
 a man's job, a long fight, and the confidence of ultimate 
 victory. I will promise them the friendship of these 
 children." 
 
 Summing Up the Unfinished Task. These glimpses 
 of the work on the Iron Ranges and of the colporteurs and of 
 the twelve major city presbyteries are altogether inadequate 
 to portray either the size of the task or the efforts of the 
 Presbyterian Church to solve it. We have not even men- 
 tioned the 1,500,000 migrant laborers who work in harvest 
 fields, truck patches, vineyards, orchards, and lumber camps 
 a few weeks or months at a time and then move on like 
 Ishmaelites to other communities, never staying anywhere 
 long enough to be reached by the traditional methods of 
 local churches. And what of the 300,000 Negroes who 
 have migrated from the South during the last few years to 
 the industrial centers of the North and who now live among 
 the very worst conditions of the so-called civilized life? 
 And just now the papers are telling us that from 15,000,000 
 to 25,000,000 foreigners are determined to come to America. 
 These figures stagger the imagination; they present a 
 problem far beyond the capacity of the Presbyterian organi- 
 zation to reach, but that does not excuse us from making 
 the effort. Let us pause and try to get a perspective on 
 this business. 
 
 Perspective. The purport of this book is this: As 
 Christians we are working to establish the Kingdom of God 
 — the time when men shall live together in justice, right- 
 eousness, and brotherhood, in fellowship with God. As 
 Presbyterians we have historically been especially vigorous 
 
loo UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 in removing certain obstacles that prevented men from 
 establishing such a Kingdom, and to that end have fought 
 for political and religious freedom and for education. The 
 task that confronts us in industrial centers is in line with 
 our purpose as Christians and our history as Presbyterians. 
 It is to help the millions of men and women who live in 
 
 \ America's industrial centers, the great majority of them 
 immigrants, first to a closer fellowship with God, and second 
 actually to secure the political and religious freedom and 
 the education they need for the fullest development of their 
 characters. 
 
 I The Only Solution. The task is beyond our organi- 
 zation, but not beyond us as individual Christians. If each } 
 of the 1,600,000 Presbyterians in America would extend a , 
 sympathetic and friendly hand to the immigrants in his own | 
 community, the immigrant '^problem" would dissolve in i 
 mutual understanding. If each of us lived out in daily ] 
 practice the Golden Rule, industrial warfare would give way 
 to brotherhood. 
 
 Old-Fashioned Neighborliness. It is for such man- 
 to-man friendship that Dr. William P. Shriver appeals in 
 his account of the work of the Neighborhood House, at Gary 
 Indiana. 
 
 The core of Christian Americanization is nothing more, 
 nor less, than old-fashioned neighborliness. Kindness born 
 of a sense of kinship is the strong tie to bind us in our new 
 community relations. For that the steel towns, the mill 
 towns, the mining camps wait. For that the heart of the 
 immigrant, far from the old home, amidst the strangeness 
 and perplexities of a new world, is fertile soil. "A neighbor 
 for every foreign family," might well be the slogan of many a 
 community that is asking to-day, "What can we do for 
 the immigrant?" 
 
 For the foreign quarter, the polyglot community, the 
 "Little Italy" on the other side of the tracks, this purpose 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES loi 
 
 of a Christian neighborliness may often best be translated 
 through a Neighborhood House. Let it be as simple as 
 possible, an old house converted to a new service, freshened 
 by paint, made homelike and inviting, a cheerful place for 
 meeting and getting acquainted, for friendly helpfulness 
 according to the need of that particular community, and a 
 new door will have to be opened out into all that finer, 
 fairer community life with which we associate the best of 
 America. 
 
 Ten years ago the Neighborhood House at Gary, at that 
 wonder center of the steel industry, was inaugurated in this 
 simple way. To-day it is housed in a building erected in 
 successive stages at a cost of $50,000. Its equipment and 
 activities reflect the social and religious needs of the foreign 
 and polyglot community of South Gary. There are widows 
 of the steel workers who must go out daily to work ; for their 
 babies there is a day nursery. During the summer an im- 
 mense amount of infant welfare work is done in the station 
 established at the house. A visiting nurse employed by 
 the city makes her headquarters there. Out of a total of 
 57,000 attendants at the week-day activities of the house 
 in a year, one fourth were reached in the interest of health 
 and better conditions of physical life, through the friendl}'^ 
 service of the day and night nursery, the clinic, the baths, 
 and sickness treated. So the urgent need of the neighbor- 
 hood registers itself in the program of the Gary Neighbor- 
 hood House. 
 
 There is a laundry where every facility is furnished for 
 doing the family wash. An employment bureau last year 
 provided 3500 pieces of day's work, especially for women. 
 Many permanent positions, mostly in homes, were found. 
 The house is used as a meeting place for various immigrant 
 and fraternal societies. There are lectures, a library, classes 
 in English for coming Americans, piano lessons and practice, 
 cooking and needlework classes, boys' and girls' clubs, and 
 gardens. At every possible point cooperation is established 
 with the churches, schools, associated charities, Red Cross, 
 physicians, city matrons, hospitals, probation officers, and 
 all public welfare and social agencies. 
 
 All this service is an expression of the spirit of Christ. 
 The Neighborhood House is a modern incarnation of a liv- 
 
102 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 ing, loving, serving Teacher and Friend. It is a gospel of 
 acts for the foreigners, for whom, too often, our Christ has 
 been only a dead Christ presented in form and sacrament 
 and ceremony. There is a Sunday school with an average 
 attendance of 145. The week-day religious school, con- 
 ducted cooperatively under the Gary plan, enlists an attend- 
 ance of 100 twice a week. Within the fellowship of the 
 house has developed a society of Christians, the Church of 
 the Saviour, with worship in English, Slovak, and Italian. 
 
 At the heart of this house, are those who think and plan 
 and hold out their hands in neighborly fashion. Rev. Ralph 
 Cummins, director, an honor graduate of McCormick Theo- 
 logical Seminary, spent fifteen months in southern Europe 
 as an immigration fellow of the Board of Home Missions. 
 He knows the peasant immigrant both here and over there. 
 To the field of the immigrant and industrial community he 
 has given his life in the same fine devotion with which other 
 younger ministers have chosen the foreign field. Mrs. Cum- 
 mins, a graduate nurse, has planned and directed the nursery, 
 the clinic, and the round of home visitation. Both of these 
 leaders embody the inspiring spirit of the New Home 
 Missions. 
 
 The Neighborhood House is a valued asset in any pro- 
 gram of Christian Americanization. It affords opportunity 
 for the mutual interchange of the best of immigrant life 
 and tradition and the best and most hopeful Americanism. 
 It reproduces the informal and grateful ministry of Jesus. 
 There could be no finer contribution on the part of the 
 Presbyterian Church to our new American life than a hun- 
 dred of these Neighborhood Houses spread across this 
 country from coast to coast. 
 
IN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITIES 103 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. Why in industrial centers is it especially hard to get 
 
 hold of the spirits of men? 
 
 2. Describe the arrival and settlement of a typical Polish 
 
 immigrant in this country. 
 
 3. How many foreign born are there in the United 
 
 States? Where do they live? 
 
 4. Sketch the present church and immigrant situation in 
 
 Greater New York. In your own community. 
 
 5. What are "Daily Vacation Bible Schools"? 
 
 6. What are "Boards of Church Extension"? How many 
 
 of these are there at present? Where, for example? 
 Mention at least four different lines of work they are 
 trying. 
 
 7. At what stage is our work among the immigrants? 
 
 Why has the Church established a welfare worker 
 at Ellis Island? 
 
 3. Describe the task of a colporteur showing its diffl- 
 cidties and its opportunities. 
 
 9. The Iron Ranges. Where are they? Why is Chris- 
 tian Americanization work needed there? What 
 has been done? What further ought to be done? 
 
 10. In immigrant work what is the value of "old-fashioned 
 
 neighborliness"? 
 
 11. Demonstrate the significance of a Neighborhood 
 
 House in a foreign section. 
 
 12. Is there an immigrant "colony" in or near your com- 
 
 munity? What is your church doing to extend 
 neighborliness to it? What are you not doing? 
 What more should you do as a church and as in- 
 dividuals? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 Of the Field 
 
 / Fifty-four million people are living in rural and 
 small town communities of less than 5000 population. 
 The problems facing the Church are shifting popula- 
 tion, declining Church membership, lack of community 
 centers and community leadership, the circuit sys- 
 tem, nonresident ministry, inadequate equipment, and 
 denominational overlapping. 
 
 The Ohio Rural Life Survey found that of 1515 
 churches in thirty-one counties more than two thirds 
 were arrested or dying. 
 
 Very few country churches receive the full time of a 
 pastor. Ministers cross and recross one another's 
 paths, serving two, four, or even eight and ten 
 churches. Of the 17,000 country churches of one de- 
 nomination, 12,000 are without services every Sunday. 
 Another denomination has nine tenths of its rural 
 churches served by absentee pastors: and three 
 fourths of its churches have but one service per 
 month; while one fourth has no Sunday school at all. 
 
 There is a close relation between the decadence of 
 country populations and the degeneration of rural 
 stock. Rev. C. O. Gill in his book "Six Thousand 
 Country Churches" shows that illiteracy, illegitimacy, 
 crime, and physical degeneracy correspond in their 
 frequency to the decay of the country church and the 
 substitution for it of an emotional, irresponsible re- 
 ligious type — a great danger to Protestantism and 
 Americanism. 
 
 American Volume — Inter church Survey. 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 With the aid of the Board of Home Missions, 418 
 ministers are serving more than 1000 churches. This 
 is the historic "American Work" of the Board. About 
 nine out of ten Presbyterian churches in this country 
 to-day were at one time home mission churches of 
 this type. The Board's aim is to develop weak 
 churches into strong, self-supporting ones with resi- 
 dent pastors, with proper equipment and without 
 waste of money and effort in competition with other 
 denominations. 
 
 This Board, through its Country Life Department, 
 is also administering fifty-three demonstration coun- 
 try parishes in the Middle West, Southland Far West, 
 each with a resident pastor and with each securing as 
 rapidly as possible the equipment needed for its par- 
 ticular field. 
 
 In cooperation with other denominations, ten sum- 
 mer schools are being conducted for country minis- 
 ters. These schools deal not only with the fundamen- 
 tal philosophy underlying the building up of a Chris- 
 tian rural community life, but with practical and suc- 
 cessful methods as well. 
 
 To build up a more permanent personnel in rural 
 fields, a strong recruiting policy has been adopted by 
 which specially trained young men are being recruited 
 on five and seven year contracts, with a living wage 
 and sufficient equipment for effective work. 
 
 Through the eighteen self-supporting synods and 
 presbyteries which administer their own work, simi- 
 lar attempts are being made to develop rural fields 
 under resident ministers on long term service plans. 
 
 We have every right to feel proud of our home mis- 
 sion work in rural and frontier communities, but the 
 plain fact is that the Presbyterian Church still toler- 
 ates the pernicious circuit system, still underpays its 
 ministers, and still is content to go along in the old 
 ruts with an outworn program that does not meet the 
 needs of present-day communities or materially help 
 country people in their spiritual battles. 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 
 
 The Task of the Church in the Country. The task 
 of the Church in the city is to save men's spirits from burn- 
 ing up in the competitive race for business. It is a race 
 where a man is subjected to all the temptations of greed, 
 passion, and cruelty. Unnatural living conditions, the 
 pressure of crowds, and the roar of machinery must be 
 overcome before a man may listen to the still small voice 
 of God in his soul. 
 
 The task of the Church in the country is also to save 
 men's spirits, and to make them one with God, but the 
 obstacles to be overcome are different. The farmer's spirit-^ 
 ual war is against individualism, isolation, narrowness of 
 mind and heart, a false independence, and the malignity 
 that breeds in moral and social stagnation. Somehow the 
 Church must help the farmer to win this war. It must help 
 him to put cooperation in the place of individualism, and 
 breadth of sympathy and understanding in the place of 
 narrowness. It must see that there is no moral or social 
 stagnation in the farmer's community, but instead a whole- 
 some happy life for himself, his wife, and his children in 
 fellowship with God. 
 
 In Fellowship with God — that is the Church's end as 
 well as its method. Other organizations, the Grange, the 
 school, the lodge, and a score of social and commercial 
 agencies, are endeavoring to improve social conditions in 
 
 io8 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 109 
 
 the country and the Church must work with them all. But 
 the task of the Church is fundamental to them all, for unless 
 a man's life is so controlled by a living, indwelling God that 
 he desires to conform his conduct to Christ's law of love 
 and service, there is small chance of educating him in any- 
 thing except selfishness. You may teach him how to raise 
 more corn, but he will use his knowledge only to "feed more 
 hogs, to buy more land, to raise more corn, to feed more 
 hogs, to buy more land," and so on until he is gathered to 
 his fathers in the village cemetery. It is the frank purpose 
 of getting men in fellowship with God that distinguishes 
 the task of the Church from every other social agency. 
 
 The Struggle to Survive. So much for the task of 
 the Church in the country. For the last three decades this 
 task has been increasingly difficult. The country church has 
 been engaged in a terrific struggle to survive. So long as 
 its task was among a settled population where generation 
 after generation lived on the same land, worshiped in the 
 same church, and worked and played together in the same 
 homes and public buildings the Church's task was simple 
 enough, although never easy. But economic and social 
 conditions have been changing mightily. First farm land 
 began to soar in price and more and more it became the 
 object of speculation. Old families began to sell their farms 
 and move on to cheaper land. The typical rural community 
 to-day has been undergoing a shift in the agricultural popu- 
 lation. The old families moving out has meant a breaking 
 of community ties. Often the old families have been suc- 
 ceeded by absentee landlords. Old forms of recreation have 
 been passing away, community spirit and community pride 
 have been at low ebb. Tenant farming has increased. So- 
 cial and moral stagnation have set in. 
 
 The average country church is face to face with the 
 problem of "oldtimer" and "newcomer." The oldtimers 
 
no UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 are for shifting the burdens of community problems and 
 responsibilities upon the shoulders of the newcomers, and the 
 newcomers are for pushing them back upon the oldtimers. 
 Add to these problems of shifting population, changing com- 
 munities and oldtimer and newcomer difficulties, the changes 
 that have been brought about by telephones, rural mail 
 delivery, automobiles, mail-order businesses, and consoli- 
 dated schools — and you have some conception of the new 
 conditions in which the country church works. 
 
 But changed though the conditions in the country may be 
 the average country church has not changed its program or 
 its methods. It has been stumbling along in the old ruts 
 and wondering why it made no progress. It has been preach- 
 ing and taking collections. Its order of service is the same 
 that it had in pioneer days — a few hymns and a sermon. 
 Then country people seldom got together in any sort of 
 meeting. The preacher was the only educated man in the 
 community. He was newspaper and magazine as well as 
 prophet. A social meeting and a sermon met a very defi- 
 nite need. But to-day many in the congregation are as 
 well educated as the preacher. The spiritual problems that 
 face the congregation are largely social. Yet the preacher 
 and his message and the old order of service are still in- 
 dividual and otherworldly. 
 
 Moreover the Church has gone on wastefully multiplying 
 little one-celled church buildings until in many parts of the 
 Middle West and South we have four church buildings where 
 there is support for only one. And instead of developing 
 a highly trained resident ministry for the country church 
 we have multiplied circuit riders who live in towns where 
 they do not preach and preach in the country where they do 
 not live. 
 
 Because the country church has failed to adapt itself to 
 changed conditions in the country and failed to apply 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES iii 
 
 business sense in administering its work as an institution 
 the struggle for survival has been going hard with it. The 
 rural survey of the Interchurch World Movement tells a 
 story of decline and decay that challenges the earnest 
 thought of every American. 
 
 Decreasing Numbers in Country Communities and 
 Country Churches. From a thriving country church of 
 fifty-five families in 19 17 one congregation has lost twenty- 
 seven in the last three years. Nearly half of the families 
 in this Michigan rural community closed their homes and 
 moved either to Detroit or Flint. The graduating class of 
 the high school numbered twenty in 1918, six in 19 19, and 
 last year three. This tells the story of what has been hap- 
 pening in greater or less degree in thousands of country 
 churches. Excluding the incorporated towns of under 2500 
 population, rural America lost slightly in population during 
 the last census period. Everywhere except in the newest 
 sections, country churches are reporting diminishing mem- 
 berships. An analysis of seventeen counties in one repre- 
 sentative state, covering 738 churches, shows that less than 
 two fifths are growing, while nearly one fifth has given up 
 the struggle to survive. 
 
 The Ineffectiveness of the Too Small Church. 
 This naturally makes for a small country church. Dr. Gill's 
 study of nearly 7000 country churches in Ohio in 19 16 
 showed that more than half had less than 75 members. 
 From county after county reports of the Interchurch Survey 
 showed that from thirty-five to fifty-five per cent of the 
 churches in the open country had less than twenty-five 
 members. It is a dull and uninspiring church life at the best, 
 which such meager groups sustain. Too few for aggressive, 
 telling work, too poor collectively to have either adequate 
 equipment or ministry, too small to provide enthusiasm and 
 leadership for service, such churches, results thus far in 
 
112 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 hand would indicate, have but one chance in four of sur- 
 viving. I 
 
 Inadequate Leadership. Some of these struggling 
 churches that happen to be in stragetic places might be im- 
 bued with new life and vision, were the leadership adequate. 
 Too frequently, however, the country pastor is not fitted to 
 cope with the changing conditions of these times. College 
 and seminary men are rare in the open country ministry, 
 unless it be that they motor out from some town or city to 
 preach a sermon, receive an honorarium, and ride away. 
 One of the most progressive denominations in a prosperous 
 eastern state reports that sixty per cent of its rural pastors 
 have not had college or seminary preparation for their 
 iwork. Four of the largest denominations serving rural 
 America admit that not more than ten per cent of their 
 country ministers have had such training. Some counties 
 have been found in which not a minister was so trained. 
 Quite apart from the salary question, the young man of to- 
 day, adequately trained, is not interested in the task of 
 holding together small and ever smaller groups of people in 
 organized congregations just because the idea persists that 
 denominational well-being is thus benefited. Hence, though 
 there are notable exceptions, trained religious leadership is 
 still to be supplied to the average country community. 
 
 The Pernicious Circuit System. This general situa- 
 tion, as well as the legacy of the past, has fastened upon the 
 Church that evil known as the circuit system. Ministers 
 are asked to divide their time among several country congre- 
 gations. They are assigned three, four, six, even eight to 
 a dozen churches which become points on the circuit of the 
 minister. This system reduces the servant of the Lord to 
 the position of a traveling peddler of sermons. Pastoral 
 work that means so much in its intimate contact becomes 
 impossible. Residence with the majority of his congrega- 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 113 
 
 tion, with that type of careful executive oversight that this 
 implies, is out of the question. The system is general 
 throughout America. It is an exceptional county that 
 shows more than one out of every four of its ministers 
 giving full time to but one congregation. The acid test 
 of any system is the result it produces. With at least two 
 out of every three country churches in America closed on any 
 given Sunday in the year, the Church itself supplies the 
 opening wedge for Sabbath-breaking. Denominationalism 
 demands that communities keep the Lord's Day only as 
 often as the circuit rider can meet his appointments. The 
 inefficiency of the plan is further revealed when it is realized 
 that ministers travel thousands of miles, crossing and re- 
 crossing one another's paths to keep their appointments. 
 Often they pass through areas entirely untouched by the 
 Church, because the church without a resident pastor on 
 full time to direct its energies does not stretch out far from 
 the home base. Seeing that the Church does not take itself 
 seriously, people treat it in the same way. Many whole 
 communities are served entirely by nonresident pastors who 
 come from without and travel around a circuit. One east- 
 ern town has three churches and three resident ministers. 
 None of the resident ministers, however, preaches in any 
 of these churches. Instead they travel to stations scattered 
 through three counties, the churches in the town being served 
 by three men from without, one of whom travels nearly 
 100 miles a round trip every time he preaches in this town. 
 Such conditions are not unique by any means. They can 
 be duplicated in every part of America. One of the richest 
 agricultural townships in Pennsylvania has four churches. 
 They are in sight of one another. One has two services a 
 month and is served by a pastor from another state. The 
 second receives one service a month from a pastor ten 
 miles away. The pastor for the third comes once a month 
 
114 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 on a week night from Washington, D. C. The fourth church 
 has closed its doors. The people could easily support one 
 full-time, resident pastor who, as a layman in another rural 
 community said in pleading for just this thing, "would be 
 a man of God to live among us, who would occupy one of the 
 three empty parsonages, who would care about our school 
 because his children went there, who would be concerned 
 about how we played for he and his would play with us, 
 who would understand our sorrows, because he would be one 
 of us, who would point the way of God, by life and direc- 
 tion as well as by an occasional word." 
 
 Denominational Overlapping. As has been indicated 
 the circuit system is an excuse to keep together denomina- 
 tional groups for the glory of annual reports. That spells 
 denominational overlapping and all the waste that this form 
 of competition means. The community from which came the 
 layman quoted just above has three churches for 550 people, 
 all on part time. Across the state line from that town is a 
 village of 150, in which six churches still cling tenaciously 
 to some sort of life. In Spring Mills, a hamlet of 456 people, 
 there are six churches, but no resident ministers. Within 
 a radius of three quarters of a mile are three churches of the 
 same denomination. In the face of bettering roads this is 
 the most inexcusable type of competition. Instances could 
 be multiplied but results are more to our purpose. 
 
 Apply this situation to a given county. We find seven 
 communities with seventy churches, not one of which has a 
 noncompetitive field. Of the seventeen clergymen residing 
 in the county only four live near any one of the churches 
 which they serve. Not one gives his undivided attention to 
 any single church. Nineteen ministers living outside of the 
 county enter it to preach at various points. On an average 
 they travel almost twenty miles to reach their stations. The 
 parishes of some of these churches compete with as many as 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 115 
 
 twelve of their neighbors. Yet there are nine considerable 
 areas within this county that do not receive the attention of 
 any church although ministers ride through them to reach 
 their appointments. Of the churches in this county only 
 four have as many as four services a month. Ten have had 
 no meeting for half a year or more. A score have but one 
 service a month, twenty-eight have two services, and two, 
 three. The balance is entirely abandoned. The circuit 
 plan, the overlapping, in short the system on which we try to 
 administer the rural church in America, is therefore respon- 
 sible through this type of service, not only for unevangelized 
 areas but for whole townships and communities that are 
 actually neglected because of the effort to hold allegiance 
 merely by occasional preaching. 
 
 The situation of this county is no worse than the average. 
 In one of the richest counties of the corn belt forty-one 
 churches leave one quarter of the area and more than one 
 quarter of the population outside their ministry, while no 
 church, on the other hand, is free from competition from 
 some of its neighbors. In a New England community of 
 twenty-six square miles this process has run its course. 
 Last year eight abandoned churches in that area told the 
 story of destruction through competition and its attendant 
 evils. To-day, cooperatively, one resident leader is reaching 
 the entire region and securing real response. 
 
 Inadequate Program. The program of the Church on 
 a circuit is nothing more than its once or twice a month 
 preaching service and an annual revival. No city church 
 could be sustained on this basis and country churches cannot 
 either. Between one sixth and one quarter of churches 
 on circuits have not even the most elementary sort of Sunday 
 school. The pastor of one church remarked that the future 
 of the Church lay with its young people. Out of ninety- 
 five members of this church fifty-five were under twenty-one 
 
ii6 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 years of age. Yet this church had no young people's society, 
 no leadership training, no social life, not even a Sunday- 
 school picnic. The pastor preached twice a month but did 
 not even attend Sunday school. The future of the Church, 
 however, "lies with the young people." Are they to blame 
 if they let it die? 
 
 Starvation Salaries. It is sometimes said in defense of 
 the circuit system that it enables the country people to have 
 some sort of religious ministration within reach of what they 
 can afford and that it gives to the minister a wage higher 
 than he could hope for did he serve but one congre- 
 gation. 
 
 What are the facts? In one of the richest agricultural 
 counties in the east, a trucking county, only fifteen per cent 
 of the ministers receive $1500 or more, including the value of 
 the parsonage. More than one third must resort to other 
 occupations to make both ends meet. In another state the 
 ministers of seventeen counties were studied and more than 
 half had to divide their time between their churches and 
 some secular occupation. In a score or more of counties the 
 average annual wage was less than $100 and in several less 
 than $35. County after county in every section of the coun- 
 try fails to show a minister who needs to pay an income tax. 
 The average wage of most is below the income of the rubber 
 and shoe workers. 
 
 The record of the Presbyterian Church in this matter of 
 salaries is not a happy record to contemplate. The statistics 
 in the American Volume of the Interchurch World Survey 
 show that the average salary of a Presbyterian (North) 
 minister is only $1393 including his house, although the 
 government has estimated that the bare cost of living for 
 an average American family is $1500. Our support of re- 
 tired ministers and widows and orphans of ministers is even 
 less worthy. The maximum relief that the Board of Min- 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 117 
 
 isterial Relief and Sustentation was able to give to any re- 
 tired minister during the year ending March 31, 19 19 (the 
 last figures available) was $400. Two hundred and fifty- 
 nine honor roll retired ministers received an average of only 
 $334; 421 other ministers received an average of $271; 
 900 widows received an average of $179, and no widow was 
 allowed more than $300. "The Church which fails to take 
 care of its ministers when they have worn themselves out in 
 its service, will shortly have no ministers wearing them- 
 selves out for it." 
 
 Put Yourself in the Minister's Place. In the large, 
 facts like this make little impression. Think yourself into 
 the personal situation of the spiritual leaders who face these 
 facts. Writes one: "I cannot keep my wife and baby at 
 the present cost of living and pay off the debt on my educa- 
 tion on a salary of $1 100 a year and house. We are without 
 clothes respectable for our calling. I am starved both 
 physically and spiritually trying to live and work in a town 
 where there are four Protestant churches when there should 
 be one. The pastor of Church A receives several hundred 
 dollars home mission aid. Church B is one point on a large 
 circuit. One hundred dollars of my salary (Church C) 
 comes from the Home Board. Church D (Presbyterian) 
 was closed, but with money from their campaign they are 
 opening up again with $400 missionary money." Mission- 
 ary money! How long, O Lord, how long? 
 
 Jesus Christ called men to sacrifice. He also called them 
 to service — service for the Kingdom of God. No real 
 disciple desires more than the hire of which he is worthy 
 as a laborer, which will provide for the daily bread. But 
 never can the best men of America lay down their lives as 
 a sacrifice on the altar of starvation for the sake of any less 
 cause than the Kingdom of God. Loyalty to Jesus does not 
 demand submission to that type of situation. 
 
ii8 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 The Immigrant in Town and Country. The whole 
 task is being complicated in many sections, especially in New 
 England, the Mississippi Valley, and the small fruit regions 
 of the Pacific Coast, by the inrushing tide of foreign born. 
 Nearly 6,000,000 foreign born and another 6,000,000 of im- 
 mediate foreign extraction now live in town and country 
 districts of America. They bring different languages, dif- 
 ferent customs, and different standards of living into the 
 rural community. The Church must find a way to meet 
 the spiritual needs of these immigrants. We must lead the 
 way for a clearer mutual understanding in order that they 
 may know what is the best in America and we may know 
 what is best in them — and that together we may build up 
 a New America. The survey returns of one county of 30,000 
 omitted to mention a community of 2000. When this 
 , omission was checked back it was explained that this com- 
 Jmunity of 2000 was made up of foreigners and was therefore 
 If of no significance in the study of the churches of the county!] 
 ^' The Unfinished Task. These, then, are some of the' 
 outstanding problems. Every county studied shows its 
 unevangelized or neglected areas, reveals need for adjust- 
 ment of parishes and ministerial residences, for adequate 
 equipment, enlarged program, resident ministers, a unified 
 program of effort, and a gospel wide enough in its applica- 
 tion to include all community relationships and needs. 
 It must meet the spiritual needs of its contemporaries — 
 not its forefathers. If it is to do this it must first eliminate 
 its present handicaps, its outworn program, its wasteful 
 competition, its nonresident ministry, its insufficiently pre- 
 pared preachers, its inadequate salaries. 
 
 The Importance of This to the Presbyterian 
 Church as a Whole. Seventy per cent of the Presbyterian 
 churches of this country are in small towns or country com- 
 munities. Their struggle for survival is important not only 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 119 
 
 to themselves, but to the whole nation and to the foreign 
 mission enterprise. For both the city church and the foreign 
 mission station rest ultimately upon the foundation of the 
 country church. Go into any city church and ask for a 
 raising of hands to show how many adults there were 
 first led into the church in a rural or village community, 
 and the chances are that from fifty to seventy-five per 
 cent of the adults will testify to their rural and small town 
 origin. When the country church loses out in its struggle to 
 survive, the doors of the city church will close soon after- 
 ward, and before that happens the foreign mission enter- 
 prise will have collapsed for lack of moral and financial 
 support. The country church will not die, the danger is that 
 it will become a chronic invalid and fail in its great mission 
 of helping country people win their spiritual battles. 
 
 What the Presbyterian Church Is Doing About It. 
 Eleven years ago the Presbyterian Church, realizing the 
 trend of things in the country, sent a number of men into 
 the field to make careful studies of causes and remedies. 
 These studies have been continued to this day. Out of 
 them has come the Country Life Department's platform for 
 country churches: 
 
 One Church in Every Community 
 
 To unite the people in worship and service; 
 
 With the gospel and friendship for all; 
 
 With help for every community need, whether of good 
 roads, adequate schools, social life, or what not; 
 
 With Christian leadership for every occasion and co- 
 operation for every movement which contributes to 
 the betterment of mankind. 
 
 A Resident Minister in Every Community Church 
 
 With the love of the country church and the country 
 
 people in his heart; 
 With accurate and sympathetic knowledge of his task 
 
 and his community. 
 
120 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Every Community a Permanent Home 
 
 Where no one is poor or strange or dissatisfied; 
 
 Where men are taught how to live and work in the 
 country and to support their homes, their institu- 
 tions, and their community; 
 
 Where every generation transmits a richer heritage — 
 in lands and institutions and traditions — than it 
 received ; 
 
 Where there is a satisfaction in the present and a faith 
 in the future to inspire with a confidence of eternal 
 life. 
 
 Measuring Church Efficiency. In order that the 
 country churches may measure their own efficiency in 
 ministering to the needs of rural communities, a score card 
 has been devised. The thirty-one points on this score card 
 include : 
 
 Social and recreational equipment, including a stage; a 
 well-equipped kitchen; an organ or a piano; separate Sun- 
 day-school rooms or curtained spaces for classes or depart- 
 ments; stereopticon or motion-picture equipment; adequate 
 sanitary toilets; horse sheds or parking space for automo- 
 biles; a pastor resident within the same community as the 
 church, who gives full time to the work of that church, 
 conducts services every Sunday, and receives a salary of at 
 least $1200 a year and house; an annual budget for all 
 money raised; a yearly canvass of all members; sum for 
 benevolences equal to at least twenty-five per cent of the 
 current expenses; service to all racial and occupational 
 groups which have not their own Protestant churches; Sun- 
 day school the entire year; Sunday-school enrollment equal 
 to church membership; provision for bringing pupils into 
 the church; special instruction for church membership; 
 teacher-training or normal class; provision for leadership 
 training; systematic evangelism, aimed to reach the en- 
 tire community and all classes of the community; coopera- 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 121 
 
 tion with other churches of the community ; organized activi- 
 ties for age and sex groups; cooperation with church boards 
 and denominational agencies; service to the entire com- 
 munity; twenty-five per cent of members with a definite 
 place in some part of church activities.^ 
 
 Summer Schools for Country Ministers. The Pres- 
 byterian Church, in cooperation with other denominations, 
 conducts summer schools for country ministers. These are 
 graduate schools for men who are now actually working 
 out the problems of the country church. Their work is 
 conducted on the classroom principle. They are led by men 
 selected primarily for their knowledge of rural problems. 
 They deal with the important phases of community life and 
 church work in the country and in villages and small towns. 
 They are held as a rule in the buildings of the state col- 
 lege of agriculture of various states. Their value consists 
 not only in disseminating information concerning methods 
 of country work, but in getting country ministers together, 
 giving them new visions, renewing their courage, and filling 
 their hearts with new hope. 
 
 Practicing What We Preach. Simply preaching 
 about rural conditions, setting up standards of efficiency, 
 and making out programs would have little effect unless 
 in our own churches we made an honest effort to practice 
 what we preach. In this effort more than fifty "Demonstra- 
 tion Parishes," under the direction of Dr. Warren H. 
 Wilson, have been established in various parts of the country. 
 Each one has a resident minister on full time. As rapidly 
 as possible each one is being equipped with a building 
 suited to its needs. Here is an example of one such demon- 
 stration parish. Four years ago Rev. and Mrs. Sterling 
 
 ^A pamphlet containing this score card by which you may grade 
 your own church may be had for five cents from the Board of Home 
 Missions, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
122 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Richardson were sent to the Corinth Church, five miles from 
 Allen, Texas. The total membership of the church at that 
 time was thirty-eight. There was no other Protestant 
 church in the community. The yearly budget of the church 
 was between two and three hundred dollars. Preaching was 
 held but once a month by an absentee preacher. The con- 
 gregation was divided into factions. When Mr. Richardson 
 went to preach his first sermon not a soul showed up at the 
 service. Everyone had gone to a "singing" in a neighboring 
 village. Interest in the church and in religious matters 
 generally was at a low ebb. The oldtimers had been mov- 
 ing out and newcomers had taken possession of the land. 
 Sixty-eight per cent of the population were tenant farmers. 
 Community spirit and pride had departed. 
 
 A community of this sort could never be revived by a 
 circuit-riding preacher who came but once a month to preach 
 a sermon and then left the community for another month. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Richardson had come on the demonstration 
 parish plan — to put all of their time and effort and prayers 
 into this one community. There was no house for them to 
 live in and nothing that the eye could see nor the ear could 
 hear that could possibly make the church attractive for 
 educated young people. They took up their residence in an 
 abandoned schoolhouse. In this schoolhouse the author 
 visited them months ago. 
 
 "Why did you come to this out-of-the-way place?" he 
 asked. It was Mrs. Richardson who answered. 
 
 "My husband and I accepted a place in the country be- 
 cause there was a man filled with the love of humankind and 
 endowed with a persuasive tongue, who talked to us so 
 convincingly of the needs of country folk that we felt in- 
 spired. Until then we had believed with most people that 
 the country church is a sort of ecclesiastical crutch on which 
 the infirm or inefficient minister may lean in his declining 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 123 
 
 days. It took something of the pioneer spirit to give us 
 the courage to effect the change from our city parish to this 
 field." 
 
 "What was your first impression of this parish?" She 
 smiled a bit ruefully. 
 
 "I remember my first glimpse of the place that was to 
 be my home. The house was this old abandoned wooden 
 school building; with its roof swayed like the back of a 
 Texas razorback hog, and its sharp little front porch for all 
 the world like his snout. Coming upon it suddenly in a 
 head-high forest of wild sunflowers and cockleburs, with 
 its two doors like half-opened eyes dozing in the sun, I was 
 afraid for the moment to move a step farther in its direc- 
 tion. It needed only to give a 'Whoof!' to make me take 
 to my heels. It was funny. I sat down on the ground and 
 laughed at it. And then woman-like, I cried. I wept for 
 the long-lost bathtub; for smooth, satiny floors; for the 
 joys and cleanliness of electricity and gas; for all the 
 creature comforts. I wept long, after the manner of my 
 kind. And when I raised my head and opened my eyes 
 God had prepared a wonderful surprise. The sun had set 
 and there were millions of stars, so close it seemed I could 
 almost reach up and touch them with my hand. A soft cool 
 breeze had sprung up, filled with the very elixir of life and 
 joy. A mocking bird began singing — did you ever hear 
 one sing at night? — and its music was full of more beauty 
 than ever was in the magic of Campanini's baton. Who 
 cared for a bath? There was a purling brook near by. 
 Who longed for gas? At least it was six months till winter. 
 Belasco couldn't have imagined a greater scene than I had 
 before me, and there was my orchestra all attuned. There- 
 upon, having reached the happy norm, I girded my loins 
 and went forth to see what I could see of this job." 
 
 She and her husband went straight into the job by going 
 
124 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 straight into the hearts of the people, and they found the 
 people wonderfully kind. For the first time in many, many 
 years, the folks found what it was to have a minister in 
 sickness and sorrow. No matter what their problems, they 
 found in him a reassurance of the goodness and presence of 
 God, and gradually they began to knit together, man and 
 minister — people and God. They came to know him not 
 simply as their preacher but as their friend. 
 
 Now after four years the members of the Corinth church 
 point with pride to certain spiritual and visible results. 
 There has been a moral clean-up. Four years ago prosti- 
 tution flourished openly. To-day it is gone. Farm ten- 
 antry has been reduced from sixty-eight per cent to forty- 
 nine per cent. Of course other factors besides the Church 
 contributed to this end, but the Church was an important 
 factor, for some farm owners testified that they would not 
 have stayed in a community where there was no moral 
 and spiritual training for their young people. They would 
 have followed the example of other owners who had moved 
 away in order to have these advantages for their children. 
 The tide has been turned in favor of the community. A good 
 roads club has been formed with the pastor as president. 
 The district has been persuaded to vote $50,000 for pikes. 
 Mrs. Richardson has a boys' class of thirty members in 
 the Sunday school. The young people of the church have 
 built a fence around the minister's garden and put up a 
 garage beside his house. The women of the church have 
 organized themselves in a missionary society and have helped 
 to secure new chairs for the church and an automobile for 
 their pastor. The budget of the church has increased to 
 $1600 or more, and the attendance in fair weather is around 
 200. In spite of the crop failures the people have raised 
 more than $5000 toward a new church building. Mr. 
 Richardson's eyes are bright when he talks to you about this 
 
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES 125 
 
 building, "It is going to be the finest church building in 
 all this section of Texas,'' he says. "It's going to have an 
 auditorium, and a social room, and a stage, and equipment 
 for educational and social work. And when that is built 
 we are going after a consolidated school." 
 
 When every Presbyterian country church is under the 
 leadership of such a resident pastor, investing himself in the 
 lives of the men and women and children of his parish, 
 leading the forces of righteousnesss against the powers of 
 isolation, individualism, and social stagnation, a new day 
 will have dawned not only for the farmer and his family 
 but for this nation and for the Kingdom. 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. Against what is the farmer's spiritual war? 
 
 2. What distinguishes the task of the Church from that 
 
 of other social agencies? 
 
 3. What social and economic changes have come about 
 
 in the rural section during the last thirty years? 
 
 4. How far has the Church adapted itself to these 
 
 changes? 
 
 5. What are the disadvantages of a too small church? 
 
 6. What training has the average country pastor had? 
 
 7. Discuss the circuit system in detail. Show how it 
 
 affects Sabbath-keeping; wastes energy; neglects 
 large sections entirely; fails to present an adequate 
 program for young people and immigrants; fails 
 in fairness to the minister. 
 
 8. Why is the rural church situation important to the 
 
 nation? 
 
 9. In the face of such facts what is the manifest present 
 
 task of the Church? 
 
126 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 10. Sttidy what the Presbyterian Church has already done. 
 
 11. What is the Country Life Department's program for 
 
 country churches? 
 
 12. What is the value of summer schools for country 
 
 ministers? 
 
 13. What is meant by a "Demonstration Parish"? Il- 
 
 lustrate. 
 
 14. How may the efficiency of a given church be meas- 
 
 ured? 
 
 15. Grade your own church. What score does it make? 
 
 Remember that the thirty-one points constitute a 
 minimum, not a maximum standard. In what points 
 is your church weak? What can you do about it? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AMONG ALASKANS AND INDIANS 
 
 (a) Alaskans 
 
 (b) Indians 
 
ALASKA 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 Of the Field 
 
 f The entire population is about 54,000, more than 1 
 half of which is white. Two thirds of the white pop- j 
 ulation is composed of Swedish, Norwegian, Canadian, . 
 German, Irish, English, and a small representation of | 
 a few other stocks. The natives are divided into four , 
 groups: Eskimos, Aleuts, Thlingits, and Athabascans. I 
 
 The difRculties of travel and transportation over^ 
 this vast field make missionary work a hazardous un- 
 dertaking. At certain seasons of the year the trails 
 become almost impassable. 
 
 The seasonal nature of many districts in Alaska 
 makes the army of migrant laborers relatively large. 
 
 The very great preponderance of males over females 
 in the population creates peculiar problems. In igio 
 there were five times as many white men as white 
 women in Alaska. 
 
 There are relatively few churches in Alaska, hun- 
 dreds of square miles being without a chapel or meet- 
 ing house. 
 
 The influenza epidemic has brought about the de- 
 population of certain areas and villages. This scourge 
 has been particularly severe among the natives. 
 
 Certain Protestant mission boards have been forced 
 to retrench even in the face of important needs. 
 
 The present situation demands more missionaries, a 
 broader ministry, and a more generously supported 
 work so that every occupied place may be reached. 
 
 New Christian hospitals with doctors and nurses 
 are particularly needed. 
 
 \ There must be worked out in the near future a sys- ] 
 I tern of missionary supervision for Alaska so that a i 
 wise, comprehensive, and noncompetitive missionary 
 program may be established. This system of super- 1 
 vision will also be a great boon to missionaries now \ 
 working at lonely mission stations where they rarely ' 
 I see a white face and seldom get news from the outside 
 world. 
 
 American Volume — Inter church Survey. 
 
ALASKA 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions the Presby-\ 
 terian Church is striving to bring to the Alaskans the 1 
 dynamic of the Christian religion through nine white\ 
 and twelve native churches, and several outstations. 
 At Point Barrow, the most northerly mission station 
 in the world, a new hospital has just been completed. 
 It is the only hospital within a radius of one thousand 
 miles. 
 
 A religious and medical work is being inaugurated 
 at Cape Prince of Wales. This reaches about 500 
 natives and touches also the increasing hordes on the 
 Siberian shores, just fifty miles away. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board a splendid school is 
 being conducted at Sitka, Alaska, engaging seventeen 
 commissioned workers, and enrolling ninety-four boys 
 and girls in day school, and 150 in Sunday school. 
 A medical ministry has been rendered through the 
 Hydaburg Cottage Hospital, at Hydaburg, and the 
 Klawock Cottage Hospital, at Bay View. These two 
 hospitals served 1405 patients last year, and from 
 them 2264 nursing visits were made. 
 
 It is a noble and heroic work — but on a small scale 
 compared with the efforts of the United States to se- 
 cure the wealth of this great counry. If we are Chris- 
 tians first, and business men second, we will develop 
 the human and spiritual resources of Alaska with at 
 least as much zeal as we put into the development of 
 her natural resources. 
 
Chapter V 
 
 (fl) ALASKANS 
 
 To anyone who writes upon Alaska these days three 
 stories beckon. The first is the story of the adventures of 
 the men who have prospected there for gold and copper and 
 silver or who have sought their fortunes in the vast fish- 
 eries or have hunted for seal and bear and deer in that 
 great Empire of the Northwest. The wealth that has re- 
 warded their efforts, in spite of many failures, has been 
 greater than the fondest dreams of William H. Seward who 
 as Secretary of State persuaded the United States Govern- 
 ment to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867. The price 
 we then paid was $7,200,000. Already the natural resources 
 of the territory have brought to this country more than 
 $1,000,000,000. 
 
 The second story is a dark story. It is the story of the 
 misdeeds of the men who sought their fortunes in the terri- 
 tory. They left behind them a trail of vile diseases, of 
 drunkenness, of immorality. The trail lives after them. It 
 is registered in the faces of many of the natives ; worse than 
 that, it is in their very blood and day after day its tragic 
 consequences are seen in stillbirths, insanity, and loathsome 
 sores. It is a trail that all decent men regard with shame, 
 and want to eradicate from America's history. 
 
 The third story is more appealing. It is the story of the 
 constructive work of the men and women who have given 
 their lives to bring to the people of Alaska the best that 
 America has — education, social service, and the Christian 
 
 130 
 
ALASKANS 131 
 
 religion. Presbyterians were the first to volunteer for this 
 work and what they have done is a thing of which the na- 
 tion as well as the Church may be proud. 
 /' The Story of Sheldon Jackson. It was Dr. Sheldon 
 Jackson who established the Presbyterian Church in Alaska. 
 He was a man of tremendous energy, undaunted 
 courage, broad sympathy, and statesman-like vision. His 
 first trip to Alaska was made a few years after the purchase 
 of the territory. He underwent shipwreck, exposure, sick- 
 ness, and trials of a hundred kinds. But he also organized 
 churches, established schools, and located doctors. At the 
 same time he studied the naturaj resources of the territory 
 and kept the Government at Washington informed of his 
 results. Becoming convinced that the economic and social 
 development of the country waited upon a greater food 
 supply and better transportation facilities he persuaded the 
 government to make experiments introducing the reindeer, 
 an animal that serves as substitute for the cow, sheep, and 
 horse, for it provides meat, milk, clothing, and transporta- 
 tion. The failure of one or two of these experiments called 
 down upon his head the anger of political enemies of the ad- 
 ministration and he was nicknamed "Shell-Game" Jackson. 
 But in the end the experiments succeeded and the few hun- 
 dred reindeer originally introduced have now multiplied until 
 they number nearly 200,000 and constitute one of Alaska's 
 greatest economic assets. 
 
 Educational Work. The educational policy Dr. Jack- 
 son founded in Alaska was as farsighted as his economic 
 policy. Finding no schools, the Presbyterian Church, under 
 his leadership, established them side by side with its 
 missions, and always with the understanding that as soon as 
 the Government was prepared to take over the schools as 
 part of the territorial system, the Church would relinquish 
 them. The breadth of this policy and the excellence of the 
 
132 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 schools established soon resulted in Dr. Jackson's appoint- 
 ment as Government Agent for Education in Alaska. It also 
 resulted in the establishment of the Sheldon Jackson School 
 at Sitka. 
 
 The Sheldon Jackson School. It was first opened in 
 1880 as a mission day school, but as the years went by in 
 its attempt to meet the actual educational needs of the 
 young people of Alaska, it developed into a boarding school. 
 In 1909 the school was thoroughly equipped for industrial 
 and academic work and named in honor of Dr. Jackson, 
 "pioneer organizer and missionary by whose foresight and 
 missionary zeal a large tract of land comprising the school's 
 property had been secured and through whose untiring 
 efforts and wholesome enthusiasm the buildings had been 
 erected, the equipment furnished, and the work maintained." 
 Since then the school plant has grown until to-day it com- 
 prises four dormitories, a school building containing a gym- 
 nasium, and a central heating plant, with steam laundry 
 attached. There is also an industrial building containing 
 machinery and carpenter shop, a hydro-electric power plant, 
 and a print shop. Beside these buildings there is a museum, 
 and three cottages for the families of the married workers. 
 The school is filled to its capacity with students repre- 
 senting more than twenty communities of southeastern 
 Alaska. 
 
 The Aim of the School is "to build up strong, sound 
 bodies; to train girls in the art of Christian home-making, 
 and boys as competent wage earners; and to develop 
 Christian leadership." The course of study takes the stu- 
 dents from the first grade through the high school. The girls 
 are taught sewing, cooking, laundry, and other housework. 
 The boys are trained for steam fitting and for work in 
 machine shops, carpenter shops, and printing shops, and 
 above all and through all is the spiritual training. To train 
 
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ALASKANS 133 
 
 the head and the hand without training the heart and the 
 ^irit would not be true to our ideals of Christian education. 
 For the first aim of Christian education is to develop char- 
 acter, and the Sheldon Jackson School stands first of all for 
 such development. 
 
 During the summer months the older students go out into 
 salmon canneries or on the fishing boats which supply the 
 canneries. The younger students remain at the school for 
 a summer course of study which is enlivened by camping, 
 picnics, and other activities to keep up the spirits of the 
 boys and girls and to maintain their health. 
 
 Results. Now after eleven years of such training under 
 the revised curriculum the workers in the school point to 
 the fact that the great majority of leaders in patriotic and 
 civic enterprises in all of the native villages of southeastern 
 Alaska were at one time students in the Sheldon Jackson 
 School. The characters they have developed and the knowl- 
 edge they have acquired have won them the confidence of 
 their own people and they are being elected to the responsi- 
 ble offices in the newly organized government of their local 
 communities. 
 
 A Revolting Custom Is Being Eliminated. One of 
 the best results of the school is its influence in combating 
 the primitive custom of selling young women in marriage. 
 The revolting custom is surely being eliminated — but not 
 without difficulty. Superintendent McKean thus describes 
 the struggle: 
 
 The cannery life is only one of our difficulties at present. 
 One large girl who did not return had been here for three 
 years, summer and winter. Her people wanted her to take 
 care of the children during the summer, at least that is the 
 way they put the matter up to us, and there was no way that 
 we could hold her against their wish. What she found 
 when she reached home was that a marriage was all arranged 
 for her and although she wanted to return to school and 
 
134 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 bring two other members of the family with her, she was 
 forced to marry a man for whom she had no regard what- 
 ever. The girl was just sixteen years old. When another 
 pupil reached her home she found the man whom her 
 parents planned for her to marry, right at her home with 
 her parents, waiting for her. The girl rebelled but the 
 man stayed until her parents had succeeded in forcing her 
 to do as they wished. One of the discouraging features of 
 the work here is that of having girls remain at the school 
 until they reach maturity and then to be taken away by 
 parents or relatives and forced into marriage. The old cus- 
 tom of selling daughters into matrimony as soon as they 
 approach maturity is gradually giving way, but old customs 
 die exceedingly hard. The uncle of one of our girls had a 
 marriage all planned for her and money had already been 
 paid to him by the man to whom he intended to sell his 
 niece. The girl's sister is also one of our pupils, a high- 
 school pupil who had passed the examination for citizenship 
 and she knew that her sister did not have to submit. With 
 their combined earnings last summer these girls paid back 
 to the man the amount he had given to the uncle and both 
 girls returned to school last fall. 
 
 The Most Northerly Mission Station in the World. 
 A Lieutenant Commander of the United States Navy re- 
 ported to Dr. Jackson in the fall of 1882 the degraded con- 
 ditions of the Eskimos in Northern Alaska. Dr. Jackson 
 enlisted the cooperation of the United States Commissioner 
 of Education in a plan of establishing schools in this section 
 under the supervision of well-known missionary organiza- 
 tions. Various denominations were appealed to, but owing 
 to their impoverished treasuries no one could help. In this 
 emergency Dr. Jackson appealed to Mrs. Elliot F. Shepard, 
 who agreed to provide the money for a mission school and 
 station at Point Barrow, if the Woman's Board of Home 
 Missions would undertake the oversight. This offer was 
 accepted and for many years Mrs. Shepard continued to 
 furnish the salary of the missionary at this station. 
 
ALASKANS 135 
 
 In the spring of 1890 a call was sent out for a missionary 
 to volunteer for service at Point Barrow, a call which em- 
 phasized the privations that must be endured and the 
 perils encountered. Professor L. M. Stevenson answered 
 and in July of that year he "was landed with his supplies 
 and left alone to begin his work. In this dreary and deso- 
 late place, which is farther north than the North Cape in 
 Europe; where the long Arctic day and night were each 
 nearly three months long; where the outlook on the sea- 
 ward side both summer and winter was a perpetual ice field, 
 stretching northward toward the pole; where in the autumn 
 and spring great whales sported before his front door and 
 in the winter polar bears prowled around his cabin, this 
 courageous herald of a higher civilization and a better life 
 gathered the children and older people together and gave 
 them their first lessons in the English language and the 
 elementary branches of human knowledge." ^ 
 
 Point Barrow To-Day. Thirty years have passed 
 since Professor Stevenson opened this most northerly mis- 
 sion in the world. The school is now a Government insti- 
 tution and the Church is devoting itself to a spiritual and 
 medical ministry and to another and much needed service 
 — the establishment of a hospital. There are two church 
 buildings, twelve miles apart. In both of them services are 
 held every Sunday of the year — even when the tempera- 
 ture is 30° below zero and there is no fuel. Prayer meet- 
 ing is held every Wednesday evening and Intermediate and 
 Junior Christian Endeavor every Wednesday afternoon. 
 All of them are attended by all the people in the village 
 except the sick. Dr. Spence writes this account: "Nearly 
 the usual number of people were here on Easter but they 
 were much later coming in than usual, many not reaching 
 the village until a day or so before. Only one joined the 
 ^ Stewart, Sheldon Jackson. 
 
136 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Church this year because everyone who could had already 
 joined. There were only nine baptisms this year, the 
 smallest number since we came. This was due to the 
 large number of stillbirths and a few being away at Easter." 
 
 The New Hospital. One of the most important pieces 
 of social service which the Presbyterian Church has under- 
 taken, is the establishment of a hospital at Point Barrow. 
 It is the most northerly hospital in the world. It is the only 
 hospital within a radius of a thousand miles. It is the 
 fruit of the missionaries' efforts, and especially of the past 
 five years of heroic work of Dr. and Mrs. Frank H. Spence, 
 who have put the best of their fine training and Christian 
 characters into the task. It will serve more than a thousand 
 human beings. 
 
 The need of the hospital is seen in these conditions: The 
 Eskimos live in igloos of one small room each, two or more 
 families to an igloo. There is little light and less ventila- 
 tion. When you remember that in almost every igloo from 
 one to many have died of tuberculosis (it was the white man 
 that brought the germs), and children are being born and 
 brought up in close proximity to people who are now sick 
 with tuberculosis, you can understand why so many Eskimos 
 are dying with that dread disease. Moreover, as Dr. Spence 
 writes: "Since the white man came to this northland he has 
 exploited the native. He began by ravaging their women, 
 transmitting through them a disease far more dreadful in 
 its results to posterity than tuberculosis, both being in- 
 tensified and much harder to cure when combined. Many 
 have been and are the women with loathsome sores; far 
 too many are stillbirths; far too many are the number of 
 incompetents. One child born this year was without the top 
 of his head. One woman has had two children, both of 
 them losing their minds in early childhood. There 
 are too many blind people here for the number of ihhabi- 
 
ALASKANS 137 
 
 tants. One little girl now only four years old, is afflicted 
 with the same trouble and likely to lose her sight. One boy 
 at the Point is paralyzed and helpless from the same cause. 
 When you see all these things it makes your heart ache 
 and I cannot tell it all." 
 
 To these conditions must be added the ignorance of the 
 people as the greatest handicap to any sort of treatment, 
 medical or surgical, in their igloos. Their ignorance is 
 appalling ; they are only thirty years removed from heathen- 
 ism. A hospital is an absolute essential, not only for effec- 
 tive medical work but for the very salvation of these people 
 from extinction. We Americans are more or less informed 
 of the wonderful work of Dr. Grenfell for Labrador, a 
 thousand miles farther south than Barrow. But here is a 
 place even more remote and neglected, and until now no 
 hospitals or nurses within a thousand miles. Surely if the 
 people of Labrador needed medical or surgical help these 
 people need it more. They are worthy people. The world 
 depends upon them, and them alone, to make available the 
 vast resources of copper and oil of northern Alaska. No 
 other race can stand the cold. The late Archdeacon Stuck 
 said of them: "There cannot be anywhere else such brave 
 and resolute and light-hearted folk in such an utterly 
 barren and naked land, pitting themselves against such 
 ferocity of wind and cold." 
 
 Recognizing this need the Presbyterian Church has under- 
 taken the task of establishing the hospital, the funds being 
 generously provided by the Commonwealth Fund of New- 
 York City. The hospital was designed by D. Everett Waid, 
 who contributed his services for the good of the cause. 
 Last spring the materials for it were assembled at Seattle. 
 In July it was put on shipboard and after various experiences 
 it finally reached Point Barrow in August. Fortunate! for 
 this is the first year in three that the U.S.S. Bear has been 
 
138 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 able to get that far north. When completed the hospital 
 will represent an investment of about $50,000. 
 
 Just in Time. The hospital is arriving just in time to 
 give first aid to Dr. and Mrs. Spence themselves. Five 
 years of unremitting labor, the ignorance of the people, the 
 penetrating cold, the dearth of fuel and of the conveniences 
 of civilized life, the lack of sympathetic contact with their 
 own kind, have all but broken these brave workers. We 
 think we have troubles when coal is $15 to $20 a ton and 
 hard to get, but at Point Barrow the net cost of coal is nearly 
 $100 a ton, due to the enormous freight rates from Seattle, 
 where it is necessary to go for the main part of the supply. 
 Even at this rate good coal is obtainable only in case the 
 ocean is free from ice long enough for a vessel to get to 
 this suburb of the north pole. Shipping space is also diffi- 
 cult to secure and to do more effective work the rrission 
 should have its own boat, as do the Methodist Missions in 
 Northwest Alaska. When the thermometer gets as high as 
 25° below zero, Dr. Spence shuts off the furnace in his 
 house and the family exists by kitchen fire. 
 
 But this year Dr. and Mrs. Spence have had unusual 
 difficulties. He writes: "In many ways the year has been 
 the hardest one since we came. We do not refer to the lack 
 of coal. All the services have been kept up in the church 
 with little or no fire, most of the time none at all, but they 
 were all attended by everyone in the village. The ther- 
 mometer was most of the time at or near 25° below zero 
 and sometimes lower. The breath of the people would 
 form a white vapor in the church. Had only one fire at 
 the mission all winter and the one room was kitchen, dining 
 room, bedroom, living room, office room, drug room, sur- 
 gery room, and dispensary. These, however, are only minor 
 difficulties and are easily endured. It is in the spiritual 
 work that the strain lies. 
 
ALASKANS 139 
 
 "Because of some of the things we have been through 
 this year the health of Mrs. Spence and myself is very much 
 impaired. The last of May I suffered from what at the 
 time I supposed was a slight attack of snow blindness in 
 my right eye but I found it was some serious trouble and 
 that I had a much more serious condition in the left eye. 
 Mrs. Spence is needing the care of an oculist and a dentist 
 so we are hoping the way will open for our going out. 
 
 "The thing that embarrasses us is our request a year ago 
 to remain, but at that time we were in fairly good health 
 and knew nothing of what the year had in store for us." 
 
 As this book is written these missionaries are being re- 
 lieved. The Home Board is looking now for a new doctor, 
 with sufficient courage and skill and consecration to take 
 Dr. Spence's place. 
 
 The Unfinished Task in Alaska. These bits of his- 
 tory and description of Presbyterian effort in Alaska are 
 only bits. If the whole story could be told it would include 
 the heroism and consecration that have been invested in the 
 hospital at Sitka, the boarding schools at Chilkat, Wrangell, 
 Hyda, and Juneau, and in the nine white and twelve native 
 churches and the several outstations. Slowly but surely 
 these hospitals, schools, and churches have been inculcating 
 in the whites, the Indians, and Eskimos the higher ideals 
 of the Christian religion, in education, health, and brother- 
 hood. And all the while they have been drawing the people 
 closer to God. The Thlingits and Hydas of southeastern 
 Alaska can now be called Christian people. They have 
 left their paganism and heathen customs, and the younger 
 generation at least no longer holds to the superstitions that 
 held these tribes in a bondage of fear. 
 
 But what has been done is only a foundation for what 
 remains. Remember that the natives throughout Alaska 
 are only thirty years removed from paganism, that many 
 
140 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 communities are yet untouched by Christian effort, and 
 that many missions stand vacant for want of men and money 
 to man them. The Congregational Church has turned over 
 to us the important and successful mission at Cape Prince 
 of Wales on Bering Strait. We have just sent Dr. W. H. 
 Greist, an experienced and devoted medical missionary, to 
 take charge of it. A large number of Indians, heathen and 
 living in their primitive state in the great Kuskuquim Valley, 
 have recently been reported. Many Eskimo villages are 
 without any religious work. 
 
 Moreover, there have been rumors that the political 
 government of Alaska needs a house-cleaning, and is about 
 to get it. Dan Sutherland, the man who, when Alaska went 
 dry by referendum in 191 6, journeyed at his own expense 
 to Washington and put through Congress a law making pro- 
 hibition effective in the territory, has been elected Alaska's 
 representative in Congress. A new code of laws designed 
 to untangle the web of bureaucratic statutes, and cut the 
 bonds that fetter Alaska, has been prepared and will prob- 
 ably be presented to the next Congress. 
 
 These things are mentioned here not because they are 
 matters for the immediate concern of the Church as an or- 
 ganization, but because if they come to pass they will have 
 much to do with bringing into the territory a new flood of 
 population and it is the concern of the Church that the 
 religious needs of this new population be provided for, 
 and that never again may Alaska be cursed with such a 
 trail of immorality and vice as has been left by previous 
 expeditions. All who have studied this land are convinced 
 of its greatness. It is a land of opportunity. It would be 
 an everlasting disgrace to America if we developed the 
 natural resources of the land and left the spiritual resources 
 of its 54,000 human beings undeveloped. 
 
ALASKANS 141 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. When was Alaska purchased? Of what country? 
 
 At what price? Through whose influence? 
 
 2. Look up its size, climate, and population. 
 
 3. What are its natural resources? How valuable? 
 
 4. What types of white men have gone into Alaska? 
 
 5. Who was Sheldon Jackson? Why did he introduce 
 
 reindeer into Alaska? How did he come to be ap- 
 pointed Government agent for education in Alaska? 
 
 6. Describe the Sheldon Jackson School. What was its 
 
 object? How far has it been successful? 
 
 7. Describe Point Barrow. When was mission work 
 
 started there? Through whom indirectly and 
 directly? 
 
 8. What is the Point Barrow situation to-day? 
 
 9. Make a list of the hardships the Point Barrow mis- 
 
 sionaries have faced. 
 
 10. What remains to be done in Alaska in education; in 
 evangelistic work; in Americanization; in health 
 and hygiene? 
 
INDIANS 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 0£ the Field 
 
 The total number of Indians in the continental 
 United States is approximately 334>ooo. They are 
 divided into tribal bands and clans exceeding 150 in 
 number, all speaking different languages and dialects 
 and scattered on 147 reservations and in different 
 communities in practically every state of the Union. 
 
 The Indian of the old trail was a religious being. 
 The very perils and hardships of the chase and war- 
 path created in him a longing for some relationship 
 with the unseen world of mystery about him. 
 
 But the old Indian has passed on, leaving behind 
 chieffy such vestiges of the old regime as war paint 
 and feathers, bow and arrow, blanket and moccasin. 
 
 The Indian of to-day is just coming into citizenship. 
 He must meet the demands of this new transition pe- 
 riod. He has entered upon the highway of knowl- 
 edge and cannot turn back to the old trails. 
 
 Less than one third of the Indian population is 
 related to the various Christian communions; ap- 
 proximately 46,000 are neglected by Christian agen- 
 cies and unreached by Roman Catholic or Protestant 
 missionaries. 
 
 Nine thousand Indian youths heard their country's 
 call in the late war and left their tribal clans to Bght 
 for liberty. Six thousand were volunteers. 
 
 American Volume — Interchurch Survey. 
 
INDIANS 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Through the Woman's Board of Home Missions 
 the Church conducts educational work by means of 
 boarding schools at Marble City, Oklahoma; Ganado 
 and Tucson, Arizona; Wolf Point, Montana; and 
 North Fork, California; and day schools at Indian 
 Oasis and Vah-ki. Thirty-£ve commissioned workers 
 are engaged in these schools. Their total enrollment 
 last year was 420 and they taught also 415 pupils in 
 Sunday school. Community stations are conducted 
 at Lapwai, Idaho, and Neah Bay, Washington. .A 
 medical ministry is carried on through the hospital 
 at Ganado, Arizona, and the hospital at Indian Wells. 
 These two hospitals last year engaged forty-three 
 commissioned workers and ministered to 1320 pa- 
 tients. 
 
 Through the Board of Home Missions religious and 
 educational work is carried on in nineteen states 
 among fifty different tribes, ranging from the Da- 
 kotas, who are four fifths Christian, to the nearly 
 heathen Papagoes. During the past year two hun- 
 dred churches and preaching stations have been cared 
 for, by sixty-six ordained ministers, thirty-Sve unor- 
 dained white preachers, and thirty-five native helpers. 
 This Board also maintains hospitals and Bible training 
 schools at Phoenix, Arizona; Santee, Nebraska; and 
 Lapwai, Idaho. 
 
 It is excellent work — but at this rate how long will 
 it take us to Christianize the 12,000,000 Indians in 
 North, South, and Central America.^ 
 
{b) INDIANS 
 
 Why the Task Is Difficult. No work of the Presby- 
 terian Church in America is more difficult than that among 
 the Indians. The chief reason for its difficulty is the white 
 man's record among the Indians. We began by selling the 
 Indian fire water; then we took away his land; next we 
 crowded him on to reservations ; finally we sent our mission- 
 aries to him to convert him to our religion! If the cases 
 were reversed and the Indians were the lords of the land 
 and we were upon reservations, they would probably find 
 missionary work among us just as difficult. The fact does 
 not excuse us from making the effort; on the contrary it is 
 an added reason why after such treatment the white race 
 should now be anxious to see that the Indian receives 
 justice and the best rather than the worst that civilization 
 has to offer him. That best is our religion, our education, 
 and all that we know about industry, farming, the science 
 of health, and the art of home-making. 
 
 The Indian of To-Day. He is not the same being that 
 Longfellow exalted in ^'Hiawatha," or Cooper in "Leather- 
 stocking Tales." The Indian of those stories was primarily 
 a religious being. "The very perils and hardships of the 
 chase and warpath created in him a longing for some re- 
 lationship with the unseen but apparent world of mystery 
 round about him.'* But the Indian of to-day is another 
 being. The chase and the warpath are gone. Neither in 
 muscle nor stature is the average red man anything like 
 his ancestors. White man's whisky and white man's dis- 
 eases, chiefly tuberculosis, have played their havoc with the 
 
 144 
 
INDIANS 145 
 
 red man's body. A drug — peyote or mescal — worse in 
 its effects than alcohol or opium, has ruined the minds and 
 nervous systems of many of his fellows. His home to-day 
 is a small shack practically without ventilation. And his 
 religion has degenerated even more than his body and his 
 home. Abandoning his nature worship and his paganism, 
 he has put nothing better in their places. 
 
 The Task as a Whole. The task of Christian America 
 is, then, to redeem the Indians, physically, mentally, mor- 
 ally, and spiritually. There are in this country 334,000 
 of this race. Only 120,000 of them speak English. Only 
 79,000 are citizens. Only 26,000 are voters. Less than 
 one half of the Indian population is related to the various 
 Christian communions. We must win the rest. We must 
 lead them all step by step and man by man out of their 
 ignorance and degradation into fellowship with God. We 
 must develop a native Christian leadership. We must hold 
 the young people who come back from school and see that 
 they do not lapse into their former state, but consecrate 
 their education to the good of their less fortunate fellows. 
 We must replace the superstitions of the old medicine men 
 with the best that modern medical skill can do to heal their 
 diseases and to build up their health. 
 
 An Example of Constructive Evangelical and 
 Social Work Among Indians. Fifty years ago Dr. 
 Charles H. Cook might have been arrested for having no 
 visible means of support, for he started his work on the 
 Pima Reservation with nothing at all except a boundless 
 faith in God and human nature. He had no salary and no 
 material equipment. He had read an article by an army 
 officer depicting the needs of the Pima Indians of Arizona, 
 and appealing for missionaries to come and help them. 
 Unable to find any Board or Church that could send him, 
 Dr. Cook had struck out "on his own." He had journeyed 
 
146 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 part way by train, and the rest of the way on foot and by 
 mule and by ox train. Four months it took him to reach 
 the Pima agency. There in the fullness of time he received 
 an appointment as a Government teacher, and then he went 
 to work in earnest. 
 
 He soon found that he had before him not only the 
 task of bringing the Indian into fellowship with God in 
 the Christian way, but he must needs fight against the 
 white men who were encroaching upon the Indians' lands 
 and especially upon their water rights to such an extent 
 that the Indians would have starved to death if they had 
 not had his strong leadership. Dr. Charles L. Thompson 
 describes the struggle: 
 
 The white man came to the borders of the reservation 
 and the Indian as always must suffer. Settlers on the banks 
 of the Gila River above the reservation in ditch after ditch 
 took off its waters until almost none was left for those 
 Indians who had always been self-supporting and self- 
 respecting ; whose lives had been lives of peace and industry ; 
 who had stood with the Government against the Apaches in 
 time of war, and who had every claim on the Government 
 for protection from the ravages of the incoming white popu- 
 lation. 
 
 The soul of Dr. Cook was stirred to vigorous action. He 
 appealed to mission Boards, to churches, and to the Govern- 
 ment to save his people. It was a long, hard fight with 
 robbers who had stolen the waters which alone make pos- 
 sible the very existence of the Indian. But they had a man 
 to deal with who counted on the reserves of the Almighty. 
 And in good measure he was permitted to see the victory 
 before he laid down his armor. 
 
 Fifty years have passed since that heroic beginning. 
 Dr. Cook has been called to his reward, and Rev. Dirk Lay, 
 a stalwart young giant with the mind and heart of the true 
 prophet, has taken up his work. To-day twelve churches 
 
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 C2 
 
 M 
 
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 '73 
 
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 u 
 
INDIANS 147 
 
 with a membership of 2000, and with a Sunday-school en- 
 rollment of more than 2000, are visible results of the mis- 
 sionaries' efforts. The small mission Dr. Cook built has 
 been supplanted by a magnificent stucco building erected by 
 the Indians themselves. At the fifteenth anniversary serv- 
 ice held a few months ago, 600 Pimas crowded this build- 
 ing, and one of them, Edward Jackson, twenty-seven years 
 a native helper, was ordained a minister, and conducted the 
 Communion service with reverence and dignity. 
 
 Through all these years the rights of the Indians have 
 been increasingly protected, and gradually, through the 
 faith and practical helpfulness of Rev. Dirk Lay, they have 
 established a modern agricultural community. Recently a 
 great financier thought highly enough of the integrity of 
 these Christian Indians to back them to the extent of half 
 a million dollars with no legal security for the development 
 of their farms. 
 
 An Illustration o£ Medical Work Among Indians. 
 Thirty-six hundred square miles is the field covered by 
 Dr. Gary Burke and his wife. Dr. Alice Burke, among 
 the Navajos. The Indians are scattered widely over 
 these 3600 square miles so that one patient to ten miles 
 of travel is the average. The work centers at Ganado, 
 Arizona, where there is a hospital and dispensary and also 
 the Kirkwood Memorial School. From this center the doc- 
 tors journey by horseback or buggy to the homes of the In- 
 dians, and three times a month make a forty-seven-mile trip 
 to Indian Wells where there is another hospital. Approxi- 
 mately 300 patients are treated monthly with the result 
 that the Indians are fast forsaking their medicine men with 
 their songs and dances and learning the more modern and 
 scientific ways of caring for their bodies. And along with 
 this knowledge they are finding the Christian friendship 
 of the doctors. 
 
148 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 A glimpse of Dr. Burke's work is given in this letter from 
 him: 
 
 Saturday noon Mr. Smith, the minister, and I started to 
 see a patient, a young girl who had been ill for two months. 
 The medicine men had not been able to help her. She lived 
 thirty-three miles from Ganado. It was thawing and the 
 roads were getting muddy but we got along all right. We 
 arrived at a trading post twenty-five miles from Ganado 
 about five o'clock and we stayed there all night. The next 
 morning we got a guide and went on to see the patient. We 
 found her quite ill but not hopeless. I asked that she be 
 brought to the hospital at Ganado but her people did not 
 even know that there was a hospital at Ganado for it has 
 been closed about four years. They were dubious about 
 bringing their loved one to a place about which they knew 
 nothing. They asked me all kinds of questions about my 
 own ability and about the hospital equipment and then to 
 be sure about it they asked the minister on the side if I 
 was telling the truth. They even asked if we had beds in 
 the hospital. I did all I could for her there in the hogan 
 and left with the promise that they would bring her to the 
 hospital inside of five days. Since then there has been a 
 terrible thaw and the roads are about impassable and the 
 girl has not arrived at the hospital yet. 
 
 After attending the girl I started working in the dif- 
 ferent hogans in that camp and for four hours I went from 
 one to the other trying to give relief from physical suffer- 
 ing the best I could. Sometimes it was only a trivial thing, 
 other times something more serious. After tending all 
 who needed us we drove back to the trading post where we 
 had been the night before, getting back at five o'clock, hav- 
 ing had nothing to eat all day. That night I retired about 
 eight o'clock and after I had turned in some more patients 
 came to the trading post to see me. The trader would not 
 call me and told them to come back in the morning early 
 as we were going on to Indian Wells the next morning, that 
 place being only thirty miles from Indian Wells. The next 
 morning, sure enough, two patients came in to see me and 
 I treated them. I had treated twenty patients in the two 
 days. 
 
INDIANS 149 
 
 We drove the thirty miles to Indian Wells without mis- 
 hap stopping at a little lake to have dinner where we had 
 to chop a hole in the ice to water our horses and where we 
 cooked our dinner in three inches of mud. We had mud 
 in everything except some fruit cake that some thoughtful 
 friend had sent out for Christmas and which had lasted 
 until that trip. We got to Indian Wells at sunset having 
 driven the horses 100 miles in four days. We laid up there 
 for three days and I did what I could for the hospital 
 cases and the dispensary patients. There are always a 
 number of patients who plan on .coming in when I am go- 
 ing to be there. Friday morning we started for Ganado 
 and we found the roads very muddy and badly washed 
 out in places. I was anxious to get to Ganado and so de- 
 spite the mud we tried to come clear through in one day. 
 It took us fourteen hours and in that time we gave the horses 
 fifty minutes rest to eat a nosebag of oats and drink a little 
 water from a mountain stream. Of course darkness fell be- 
 fore we reached Ganado and the road was washed out so 
 that we never knew quite what was going to happen next. 
 We tipped over once and had to dig out of the hole we were 
 in so the horses could pull the buggy back on its wheels 
 as it was so heavy with mud that we could not lift it. We 
 got out with no serious trouble to either us or the buggy 
 and came on to within a mile of the hospital at Ganado 
 when we got stuck in some quicksand while crossing the 
 big river called the Pueblo Colorado. The horses pulled 
 on the buggy until they started to break the whiffletrees 
 when we stopped them and climbed out in the icy water 
 up to our knees and unhitched them and walked home. I 
 then got a man and a wagon and we went down and hitched 
 on to the rear axle of the buggy and pulled it out. We 
 came home, got into dry clothes, fed the horses and our- 
 selves and got to bed at 3.00 a.m. 
 
 The next morning at nine a man came running in for us 
 to come quick to see his wife. We questioned him and 
 found that she really was in need of immediate help so 
 I saddled a pair of tired horses and Dr. Alice and I started 
 again, hiring another horse so that we might take with us 
 our woman interpreter. We rode about ten miles up a 
 valley and came to a little hogan with a very sick woman in 
 
150 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 it. We found that we would have to give her an anaesthetic 
 and so we had them take out all the fire as they always 
 have open fires, and there upon the ground we gave her an 
 anaesthetic and fixed her up. Two days later I returned 
 to find her doing nicely. It is now January 27, Tuesday. 
 I have been in Ganado just two whole days since Jan- 
 uary I. 
 
 The Task That Remains. The work of our doctors 
 and teachers and ministers, valuable as it all is, will never 
 bear its full fruit unless we develop a native ministry among 
 the Indians. This is the first and foremost task that re- 
 mains. Every missionary upon the field bears testimony 
 that the crying need among the Indians is an adequately 
 trained and consecrated native leadership. At present there 
 is no system of recruiting young men of piety and promise 
 to dedicate their lives to the service of God in either min- 
 istry, teaching, or medical work, and these are the very 
 lines of service which the Indians need most. 
 
 Second in importance to the need of a native leader- 
 ship is the need of a resident ministry. Altogether too 
 many missionaries among the Indians have followed the 
 circuit-riding plan which has wrought havoc with the coun- 
 try church. Like the itinerant rural minister the itinerant 
 Indian missionary preaches at one station one Sunday and 
 then moves on to another station the next Sunday and so 
 on around three or four stations, never staying at one com- 
 munity long enough to develop a genuine, helpful friend- 
 ship and leadership in local affairs. 
 
 Finally we must help the Indian develop his social 
 life. He is just learning the white man's method of farming 
 and industry and play. It is of utmost importance to the 
 salvation of his own spirit and to the welfare of those with 
 whom he comes in contact, that the Indian as he takes 
 his place in modern social life has in his heart an under- 
 
INDIANS 151 
 
 standing of the duties and responsibilities as well as the 
 privileges of social life. The Indian of to-day is an indi- 
 vidualist to the last degree; the Indian of to-morrow must 
 be a more social creature; more willing to give, to serve 
 and to fulfill the commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. Describe the present-day Indians as to numbers; loca- 
 
 tion; occupation; language; civic status; physical 
 condition; religion. 
 
 2. What is the white man^s obligation? 
 
 3. What has the Presbyterian Church done already? 
 
 4. What are the peculiar difficulties in Indian work? 
 
 Describe the work of Dr. Cook and his successor, 
 Rev. Dirk Lay. 
 
 5. Illustrate the medical work. 
 
 6. What remains to be done? 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 THE CHALLENGE 
 0£ the Field 
 
 The United States of America has been invaded by 
 three enemy armies which threaten our national ex- 
 istence. First, there is within our borders an army 
 of five and one-half million illiterates above nine years 
 of age; second, there is an army of fifty million peo- 
 ple above nine years of age who are not identified 
 with any church — Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant; 
 third, there is an army of twenty-seven million 
 Protestant children and youth, under twenty-five years 
 of age, who are not enrolled in any Sunday school or 
 other institution for religious training. 
 
 If these three armies should form in double column, 
 three feet apart, they would reach one and one-fifth 
 times around the globe at the equator. If they should 
 march in review before the President of the United 
 States, moving double column at the rate of twenty- 
 five miles a day, it would take the three armies three 
 years and five months to pass the President. 
 
 These three interlocking armies constitute a triple 
 alliance which threatens the life of our democracy. 
 Patriotism demands that every loyal American enlist 
 for service and wage three great campaigns — a cam- 
 paign of Americanization, a campaign of adult evan- 
 gelism, and a campaign for the spiritual nurture of 
 childhood. 
 
 American Volume — Inter church Survey. 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 The Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work 
 is the agency of the Presbyterian Church to which the 
 whole task of providing for the religious education of 
 the children and youth has been assigned. Its main 
 function is "the promotion of the nurture of the chil- 
 dren and youth in Christian knowledge and life.'' Its 
 program includes extending the agencies of religious 
 education, developing and promoting policies and 
 methods, and providing and disseminating materials 
 such as Sunday-school lessons, tracts, periodicals, and 
 books. More than 1,300,000 publications were issued 
 last year. Twenty-nine hundred and fourteen Sun- 
 day schools enrolling 118,1 2 g children and adults 
 are under the care of Sabbath-school missionaries. 
 Twenty new Presbyterian churches were developed in 
 this work last year, and since 1887 nearly 2000 Pres- 
 byterian churches have grown from the Sunday schools 
 established by this Board. One hundred and fifty- 
 three Sabbath-school missionaries are commissioned in 
 this work. 
 
 The Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work 
 in cooperation with the Board of Home Missions is 
 conducting 237 Daily Vacation Bible Schools enrolling 
 27,749 children. A special effort is directed toward 
 maintaining these schools among immigrant children 
 in connection with the churches of foreign-speaking 
 peoples. 
 
 In a number of urban and rural sections week-day 
 classes and community schools have been organized 
 for religious instruction during the school year. 
 
 An admirable record; but the major task is still 
 ahead of us, for systematic religious education is still 
 the blessing of the minority only, and the great masses 
 of American and immigrant children are growing up 
 without it. 
 
Chapter VI 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 
 
 Fundamental to All Other Work. Thus far we have 
 considered great national tasks of the Church. Now we 
 come closer home to a task which is fundamental to all the 
 rest. It is the task of training the children of America in 
 the Christian life — the task of Christian education. "If 
 you would point to the weakest spot in the Protestant 
 Church," says Dr. Walter S. Athearn, "you would put your 
 finger on the army of 27,000,000 children and youth in our 
 own land who are growing up in spiritual illiteracy, and 
 16,000,000 other American Protestant children whose re- 
 ligious instruction is limited to a brief half hour once a 
 week, often sandwiched in between a delayed preaching 
 service and an American Sunday dinner. Let it be burned 
 into the minds of the leaders of the Church that a Church 
 which cannot save its own children can never save the 
 world!* 
 
 Christian Education Is a Missionary Enterprise. 
 Under the terms of the great commission every enterprise 
 which is concerned in any manner in the promotion of 
 Christ's Kingdom is in the widest and truest sense a mission- 
 ary agency. Recognizing the necessity and importance of 
 proclaiming the gospel message to the benighted in heathen 
 lands and to the neglected within our own borders, by those 
 whom we specifically designate as "miissionaries," our con- 
 cq)tion of the missionary task covers a wider scope and 
 
 156 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 157 
 
 includes other forms of service in Kingdom building. Pas- 
 tors, Sunday-school workers, leaders in young people's or- 
 ganizations, and all who labor especially for the Christian 
 nurture of childhood and youth, even Christian parents 
 gathering their children about the family altar, teaching 
 them the principles of Christian living and training them 
 for service, are helping to answer the petition ''Thy kingdom 
 come" and are likewise missionaries. Indeed the mission- 
 ary task is impossible of achievement without the fulfillment 
 of our obligation to provide for the religious education of 
 children and youth. 
 
 Jesus' View of the Importance of the Child in the 
 Kingdom of God. It was Jesus who first taught the world 
 the potentialities of childhood. To the child he accorded the 
 foremost place in the Kingdom. He exalted childhood when 
 he said, "Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name 
 receiveth me." When mothers thronged about him with 
 their children he gathered the little ones in his arms and laid 
 his hand in benediction upon them. When his disciples would 
 rebuke them and send them away he restrained them with the 
 words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid 
 them not; for to such belongeth the kingdom of God." He 
 likewise condemned those who by design or through neglect 
 would place any obstacle in the way of their entrance into 
 the Kingdom when he said, "Whosoever shall cause one of 
 these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better 
 for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and 
 he were cast into the sea." How significant of his concern 
 for the child was his answer to the questions of his disciples 
 concerning the expected Kingdom. When "He called to him 
 a little child, and set him in the midst of them" he set the 
 example for the Church throughout all the ages. He might 
 have said: "Here is your greatest problem. Train the child 
 aright and my Kingdom will be hastened." 
 
158 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 The Weakest Point in the Protestant Church. 
 The Protestant Church in theory holds, of course, Jesus' 
 view of the importance of the child in the Kingdom of God, 
 but in practice we have not been working very hard at the 
 theory. The religious training which the average Protestant 
 child receives is less than 26 hours per year. The average 
 Catholic child receives 200 hours per year and the average 
 Jewish child 335 hours per year. 
 
 The situation is worse when we are informed that the en- 
 rollment in our Sunday schools is on the decline rather than 
 on the increase. In 19 15 the Presbyterian Sunday-school 
 enrollment in the United States was 1,375,875. In 19 19 it 
 had fallen to 1,319,416. Add to this the fact that half of the 
 students enrolled in Presbyterian Sunday schools attend less 
 than half the time, and you have some conception of the in- 
 adequate amount of religious training the Protestant Church 
 is giving its children. A large army of children is growing 
 into manhood and womanhood without a moral foundation 
 for citizenship. The surveys of the Interchurch World 
 Movement have revealed the very definite relations between 
 Sunday-school enrollment and church membership. The 
 great national denominations which are holding their own 
 or growing, are denominations who are giving their time and 
 attention to the development of their Sunday schools. 
 
 Some Lessons From the War. A committee of the 
 Federal Council of Churches after studying reports from 
 hundreds of chaplains, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, and other 
 religious leaders of our boys in the war, report that there 
 was a general agreement among these leaders along the fol- 
 lowing points concerning religious education in America: 
 
 First. The widespread ignorance of the meaning of 
 Christianity and of church membership demands a greatly 
 increased emphasis on the teaching office of the Church. 
 
 Second. The revelation of the large degree of failure in 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 159 
 
 our religious education challenges us to a far more serious 
 attention to the Sunday school and a candid examination 
 of its curriculum, methods of teaching, and organization. 
 The present curriculum, the present methods of teaching, 
 and the present organization, simply have not produced the 
 results they sought — that is, they have not taught even 
 those who attended them the meaning of the Christian re- 
 ligion nor have they trained young men in the way of Chris- 
 tian living. 
 
 Third. Training in intelligent habits of private and 
 public worship should be greatly stressed. 
 
 Fourth. Two false conceptions of Christianity should 
 be openly and convincingly combated — that it is selfish 
 in that it aims simply at salvation of the individual from 
 hell fire, and that it is a negative thing made up of 'Thou- 
 shalt-nots." 
 
 Fifth. A Christian interpretation of sex life must be a 
 regular part of all Christian education. All leaders agree 
 that sexual immorality was the greatest problem in per- 
 sonal morality in the army. 
 
 Sixth. The religious instruction and training given in 
 the home outlives all other religious education. In direct- 
 ing or controlling that influence lies our greatest opportunity. 
 One leader expressed the consensus of opinion in this way, 
 "The faith they have came from the home for the most part, 
 and generally from a good mother who taught them." ^ 
 
 The Hope of the Church. Let us accept these facts 
 and judgments and wrestle with them as Jacob wrestled 
 with the angel until they yield us a blessing. The hope of 
 the Church to-day is in the recognition of the child in her 
 midst. The world is learning the value of prevention. 
 Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday-school movement, 
 after he had lived to see its remarkable growth and in- 
 fluence upon the children of England said: "I have learned 
 that prevention is better than cure. It is better to train a 
 
 * Religion and American Men, by the Committee on the War and 
 the Religious Outlook. Association Press. 
 
i6o UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 /. 
 
 child to be honest than to reform a thief; it is better to 
 train a child to tell the truth than to reform a liar." 
 
 The future of our civilization, whether it be pagan or 
 Christian, will be determined by the measure of the Church's 
 obedience to the Saviour's command, "Feed my lambs," 
 for back of the Church and missions and every movement 
 for the redemption of mankind, stands the child. The 
 chief concern, therefore, of the Christian forces of America 
 should be the careful cultivation of the religious life of the 
 nation's children. 
 
 Sunday-School Missions. How shall we meet the 
 spiritual needs of the great multitude of children who are 
 beyond the reach of any church? Among the great re- 
 ligious bodies of America the Presbyterian Church was the 
 first to face this problem and decide upon a plan to pro- 
 vide its solution. The knowledge that millions of children 
 in every part of our country, especially those who were 
 living in regions into which religious privileges had not yet 
 been introduced, were without opportunities of church or 
 Sunday school, stirred the heart of the Church to extend its 
 educational activities by establishing a force of workers 
 whose special mission is to organize Sunday schools for 
 them. These workers are instructed to establish, in every 
 neighborhood within their reach, a Sunday-school organiza- 
 tion into which the children can be gathered for Bible 
 instruction and from which would radiate influence which 
 would bear fruit in Christian character, Christian homes, 
 and transformed communities. 
 
 Beginnings. Beginning with 14 Sabbath-school mis- 
 sionaries this work has grown year by year to a force num- 
 bering 140, besides 26 other workers whose special mission 
 is to minister to the immigrant population. Into hun- 
 dreds of thousands of families the Christian message has 
 been introduced for the 'first time through the labors of 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN i6i 
 
 these faithful men and women. Family altars have been 
 kindled, backsliders have been reclaimed, and the indiffer- 
 ent have been brought to repentance. Hundreds of thou- 
 sands of children and young people have been gathered into 
 the Sunday schools that have been established since the 
 beginning of this work, many of them hearing for the first 
 time the story of the children's Friend. Through the faith- 
 ful teaching of the Word in these schools, many have 
 been led to consecrate themselves to his service. 
 
 Fruitage. In these humble schools of religion, am- 
 bitions and aspirations have been awakened in the lives of 
 a countless number of boys and girls who have gone forth 
 into careers of usefulness to their fellows. The town and 
 city churches have felt the effect of these labors, for they 
 count among their most active workers those who came from 
 the country Sunday schools. The foundations of Christian 
 character which were laid in the little mission Sunday 
 schools back in their rural homes, have withstood the storms 
 of temptation and doubt as they have gone out to schools 
 and colleges; and in seasons of religious awakening, they 
 have been among the first to come forward, offering to 
 dedicate their lives to the ministry and to missionary serv- 
 ice. 
 
 The Sunday school can go where the Church cannot be 
 established. It appeals to everyone. Its aim is not to ad- 
 vance denominational prestige, but to provide in the broad- 
 est spirit of catholicity for the religious instruction and 
 training of the children, to lay the foundations of Christian 
 character, and to develop Christian lives. 
 
 Neglecting Children. In spite of this good work 
 which has been done in organizing Sunday schools in com- 
 munities where the children would otherwise have no re- 
 ligious training outside of their homes (and often not there) 
 there are still a vast number of children unreached. In 
 
1 62 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 his recent book, "Religious Education and American De- 
 mocracy," Dr. Athearn says, ''There are 15,000,000 chil- 
 dren of school age in this country who receive no religious 
 guidance whatever. There are 35,000,000 over ten years of 
 age outside the membership of any church. We are fast 
 drifting into a cultured paganism and unless the Church 
 takes important steps to stem the present tide of indiffer- 
 ence, luxury, and commercial greed this country will soon 
 cease to be a Christian nation — if, indeed, a country in 
 which three out of four of its citizens are without active 
 church relations can be said to be a Christian country 
 now." 
 
 In the western states are large areas, comprising parts of 
 counties, and entire communities which are either un- 
 churched or inadequately churched. A study has been made 
 of 16 counties in one western state where it was found that a 
 good proportion of the people have no regular church serv- 
 ices, not to speak of an adequate religious ministry. In 
 these sixteen counties there are 42 entire communities which 
 have no church organization or Sunday school or pastor or 
 regular church activities. There are 60 communities which 
 have church organizations or huildings, but lack a resident 
 pastor — one of the essentials to church growth and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 These conditions are not confined to the far West. Every 
 state in the Union has thousands of children nominally 
 Protestant but not enrolled in Sunday school and receiving 
 no formal religious education. The figures as compiled by 
 the Religious Education Department of the Interchurch 
 World Survey are startling. 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 163 
 
 Children in United StatesUnder 25 
 Years of Age (1917) 
 
 Alabama 1,418,360 
 
 Arizona 131,890 
 
 Arkansas 1,059,800 
 
 California 1,241,900 
 
 Colorado 464,510 
 
 Connecticut 594,720 
 
 Delaware 103,270 
 
 Dist. of Columbia... 155,090 
 
 Florida 513.060 
 
 Georgia 1,766,460 
 
 Idaho 231490 
 
 Illinois 3,055,140 
 
 Indiana 1,389,390 
 
 Iowa 1,134,630 
 
 Kansas 944,450 
 
 Kentucky 1,340,690 
 
 Louisiana 1,095,600 
 
 Maine 342,030 
 
 Maryland 686,830 
 
 Massachusetts 1,699,180 
 
 Michigan 1,516,190 
 
 Minnesota 1,225,590 
 
 Mississippi 1,205,700 
 
 Missouri 1,749,090 
 
 Montana 222,270 
 
 Nebraska 693,420 
 
 Nevada 40,970 
 
 New Hampshire 195,540 
 
 New Jersey 1,446,810 
 
 New Mexico 249,950 
 
 New York 4,916,280 
 
 North Carolina 1,484,970 
 
 North Dakota 436,230 
 
 Ohio 2,449,680 
 
 Oklahoma 1,351,010 
 
 Oregon 387,890 
 
 Pennsylvania 4,330,020 
 
 Rhode Island 294,150 
 
 South Carolina 1,035,210 
 
 South Dakota 379,990 
 
 Tennessee 1,313,630 
 
 Texas 2,664,090 
 
 Utah 253,000 
 
 Vermont 160,670 
 
 Virginia 1,261,420 
 
 Washington 734,800 
 
 West Virginia 805,180 
 
 Wisconsin 1,314,120 
 
 Wyoming 88,780 
 
 Total 53,575,040 
 
 Number Nominally Protestant,Ujuler 25 
 Years of Age, not in Sunday School. 
 
 1,100,250 
 
 76,490 
 
 890,000 
 
 664,590 
 
 299,910 
 
 161,100 
 
 39,150 
 
 75,920 
 
 383,430 
 
 1,348,790 
 164,540 
 
 1,317,770 
 551,590 
 570,910 
 429,960 
 821,150 
 624,690 
 143,700 
 231,570 
 627,210 
 584,160 
 706,330 
 755,900 
 883,490 
 115,620 
 426,940 
 35,290 
 66,150 
 574,200 
 132,950 
 
 1,755,870 
 885,540 
 306,800 
 
 1,052,880 
 
 >, 02 8, 000 
 240,170 
 977,960 
 99,080 
 669,340 
 270,970 
 970,420 
 
 1,376,580 
 106,040 
 62,810 
 860,080 
 496,350 
 472,640 
 779,590 
 59,340 
 
 Total 27,274,210 
 
i64 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Such "spiritual illiteracy is the forerunner of moral bank- 
 ruptcy and national decay." The proverb ''Train up a 
 child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he 
 will not depart from it/' works both ways. Train him in 
 the religious way and he will so order his life; train him 
 irreligiously, or fail to train him at all, and he will order his 
 life according to his own selfishness. 
 
 Summing Up the Unfinished Task in Sunday- 
 School Extension. With such facts before us the obli- 
 gation of the Church to the neglected childhood of America 
 is clearly manifest. Children of the prairies and plains, 
 children of the mining, oil, and lumber camps, children of 
 the Southern Mountains, and the dark-skinned children of 
 the palmettos and pines are growing into maturity, into 
 citizenship, without the knowledge of God, with no training 
 toward righteousness, with no one to lead them in the 
 Christian way. Children who do not know God, who are in 
 ignorance of the Bible, who have never been taught to 
 pray and have never heard the voice of their parents or of 
 a Christian minister uplifted in prayer — it is not of such 
 children that a people's strength is built. What hope does 
 the future hold for us as a Church or as a Christian nation, 
 unless we approach this, undoubtedly our greatest problem, 
 with an aggressive program of religious education, big 
 enough and broad enough to guarantee to every child in 
 America at least an opportunity to be taught the truths of 
 the Bible and the principles of Christian living? 
 
 Sunday-School Development. Simply to establish 
 Sunday schools is not enough. Making the schools effective 
 is the real task. The Sabbath-school missionaries take them 
 under their fostering care, develop the workers, and bring 
 them step by step to a position where they may render help- 
 ful service to their communities. 
 
 The Sabbath-school missionaries not only organize and 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 165 
 
 maintain new Sunday schools, but they render efficient serv- 
 ice to the Sunday schools connected with organized 
 churches by holding conferences with their officers and 
 teachers, and introducing new and effective methods of 
 work. 
 
 They organize teacher-training classes, encourage the 
 introduction of the Cradle Roll and Home Department, 
 besides promoting young people's organizations. They are 
 charged with the responsibility for the entire program of 
 educational endeavor, adapting it to the local conditions so 
 far as may be practicable. Daily Vacation Bible Schools 
 are being promoted and successfully conducted through their 
 efforts in small towns and in rural districts; young people's 
 organizations are being formed and encouraged; pastors' 
 classes are being introduced, and in a few cases, through 
 the cooperation of Christian school-teachers, week-day re- 
 ligious instruction is being provided. Yet the number of 
 Sabbath-school missionaries is so small and the size of the 
 task so great that the Church cannot say it is solving the 
 problem of religious education. We are only making a 
 beginning. 
 
 Religious Education for the Immigrant. Over 21,- 
 000,000 children are being reared in the homes of these 
 foreign born where association of language, reading matter, 
 and social life is tinctured with the spirit and ideas of the 
 homelands of the parents. 
 
 These children sit with our native-born American children 
 in the public schools, but, except in rare cases, little has 
 been done toward inviting them to participate in the privi- 
 leges of our church schools. Sunday schools are being con- 
 ducted in connection with mission churches and social centers 
 that have been established by our own and other evangelical 
 bodies, but the number of foreign-born children reached 
 by them is still comparatively small. This is a practical 
 
i66 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 problem that should be earnestly considered by our churches, 
 especially by those located in sections where immigrant 
 families are residing within the boundaries of the parish. 
 Thousands of children of foreigners are playing on the 
 streets within the sound of the songs and exercises of our 
 Sunday schools, but no one invites them to come and par- 
 ticipate in these services. Special classes could be formed 
 for such children, workers could be enlisted and developed, 
 and various forms of Christian social service could be ren- 
 dered that would have a salutary effect upon the life of 
 the whole community, besides fulfilling the obligations of 
 the local church to use all its facilities for the Christian 
 nurture of all the children within its reach regardless of 
 ethnical considerations. 
 
 The Daily Vacation Bible School. The plan of the 
 Daily Vacation Bible School was originally conceived to 
 meet this very need, and in most cases it has been very 
 effective, but we should take the next step and make the 
 immigrant children equally welcome in our Sunday schools 
 and other church activities. 
 
 But the Daily Vacation Bible School does far more than 
 provide some elements of religious education for immi- 
 grant children, slum children, and other children who are 
 not reached by the church school. It has been found to be 
 a most helpful agency in supplementing during the summer 
 vacation season the religious instruction which the children 
 of the Sunday school receive. The sessions of the Sunday 
 school occupy only fifty-two hours per year; the Daily 
 Vacation Bible School occupies two and a half hours per 
 day for five days each week, covering a period of five weeks, 
 or a total of sixty-two and a half hours a year. 
 
 The Church is rapidly coming to a realization of the 
 value of the Daily Vacation Bible School, and the growth 
 of the movement within the past few years has been almost 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 167 
 
 phenomenal. Last year 237 such schools were reported in 
 connection with Presbyterian churches, with an enrollment 
 (in the schools) of nearly 27,749. Doubtless there were 
 many more from whom no report was received. From 
 present indications, the reports of this year will show a 
 great increase over last year's figure. At the present rate 
 of development, it is safe to predict that within the near 
 future every church will consider the Daily Vacation Bible 
 School as necessary a factor in the religious nurture of its 
 children as the Sunday school and other agencies through 
 which this work is being developed. 
 
 Week-Day Religious Instruction. There is a grow- 
 ing conviction among leaders in religious educational work 
 that neither the Sunday school, nor the Daily Vacation 
 Bible School, nor both, can adequately meet the widespread 
 demand for a thoroughgoing system of religious education. 
 The Religious Education Division of the Interchurch World 
 Movement reported that 1,600,000 Jewish children in the 
 United States receive an average of 335 hours of religious 
 education annually in the synagogue schools. The 8,000,000 
 Catholic children receive 200 hours of religious education 
 annually under the system of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 In comparison with the half-hour weekly teaching period 
 in our Sunday schools which is provided for the Protestant 
 children of America, the evangelical bodies may find the 
 explanation of the hold which the Jewish and Catholic 
 churches have upon their children and youth, and the rea- 
 son for the drifting away of so many of our Protestant boys 
 and girls from the church and its services. 
 
 Religious nurture rather than revivalism of the old-time 
 sort is the more normal, more reliable, and more fruitful 
 instrument for the evangelization of the world. If the 
 Church could hold its own children, the outpeopling power 
 of a righteous stock would be a most important factor in 
 
1 68 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 making all the world Christian. The experience of the 
 Church shows that preservation is better than rescue. The 
 exaltation of religious education to the highest place among 
 the instrumentalities with which the Church is to establish 
 the Kingdom of God among men is, as yet, neither universal 
 nor complete ; but evidently such a place for religious educa- 
 tion in the program of the Church cannot be long withheld, 
 No school on a basis of one-hour-a-day-one-day-a-week can 
 be made a sufficient instrument for this great task. No 
 additional time we may be able to give to it on our over- 
 crowded Christian Sunday can help matters very much. 
 We must have week-day religious instruction. In the 
 evolution of the educational practices of the Church, it may 
 be that we shall come to think of Sunday as the suitable 
 time for children's worship and praise; to think of re- 
 ligious instruction as a task for the week-day church school 
 leaving the Sunday free for the culture of the deeper re- 
 ligious emotions which find expression in song and prayer 
 and Christian fellowship. 
 
 Hence many are coming to recognize that one of the 
 greatest tasks of the Church, in this day of great tasks, is 
 hov^r to organize, equip, and maintain a system of week- 
 day church schools which shall have an adequate program of 
 religious instruction, adequate time for such instruction, 
 and which shall reach as many children and youth as 
 possible.^ 
 
 To meet the situation we may do one of three things: 
 
 a. Insist that the State provide religious education in the 
 
 public schools. That would certainly result in the 
 secularization of religious instruction. Moreover, 
 it is contrary to the principles of democracy. 
 
 b. Erect a system of parochial schools. That would 
 
 withdraw the Church's children from the common 
 life of the public schools which is so essential an 
 element in training for life in a democracy. 
 
 c. Create, in cooperation with public schools, a system of 
 
 week-day religious instruction, this instruction to be 
 
 ^ Squires, The Gary Plan of Church Schools. 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 169 
 
 given under Church auspices, at the Church's ex- 
 pense, by teachers provided by the Church. This 
 would be true religious education. 
 
 Great encouragement has been given this movement by 
 the recent action of the Board of Education of the City 
 of New York in granting one afternoon each week of 
 the school year for religious instruction of children in their 
 respective churches. This action was the outgrowth of 
 the work of an organization known as the Protestant Teach- 
 ers' Association in which several hundred Protestant public- 
 school teachers had voluntarily pledged themselves to give 
 to all the school children who could be enlisted, a stated 
 number of hours of religious instruction, in addition to the 
 regular school period and without encroaching upon the 
 school curriculum. Doubtless other cities will follow the 
 action taken by the Board of Education of New York in 
 opening the way for the work to be done under Church 
 auspices. Intelligent and persistent effort will be required 
 to make the movement for week-day religious instruction 
 universal, but the life of the Protestant Church is threatened 
 unless we succeed. It will cost money. But the Protestant 
 Church is to-day paying three times as much for its janitors 
 as it is paying for the religious education of its children and 
 youth. 
 
 Organizing the Church for Religious Education. 
 Every church worker recognizes the necessity of bringing 
 all educational activities of the Church, both instructional 
 and expressional, under a properly graded and correlated 
 program. Our leaders in the work of religious education 
 have formulated plans to help attain such a goal. Churches 
 everywhere are being urged to organize a Council of Re- 
 ligious Education, under a simple and practical plan which 
 is adaptable to churches of large or small numerical strength. 
 
170 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 Complete courses of religious study — each course designed 
 to meet the needs of a particular age group — have been 
 worked out on pedagogical principles. The limits of space 
 prohibit a longer description of these plans of courses, and 
 the reader is recommended to the Sabbath School Board, 
 Philadelphia headquarters. There too, much helpful litera- 
 ture may be had on the whole subject of religious edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The Christian Home. Without doubt the most im- 
 portant agency for religious education is the Christian home. 
 We have drifted away from the old-fashioned home, and we 
 have lost immeasurably in the breaking down of parental 
 respect and authority, in the lack of reverence for sacred 
 things, and in the failure to recognize God as the head of 
 the household, and to depend upon his kind providence for 
 daily needs. The fires on the family altar have died out 
 and parental instruction in religion has well-nigh dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Perplexities o£ a Parent. Take the average parent 
 to-day. Let us call him Smith. He is a modern father, 
 cultured, keen at business, a decent and respectable citizen. 
 Smith has lost the sense of fellowship with a divine Father 
 who rules wisely and well. As the years have gone by Smith 
 has become more and more engrossed in his business and 
 has gradually given up those practices of worship and medi- 
 tation that were the atmosphere of such fellowship. He has 
 been making money and has allowed his money to make him 
 independent of God. 
 
 Moreover, Smith's reading hasn't been especially helpful 
 in reminding him that something precious was being lost 
 out of his inner life. As a result of what little reading on 
 religious subjects he has done he feels, as one father ex- 
 pressed it recently, that "Somehow Science has taken away 
 his Lord and he knows not where she has laid him." There 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 171 
 
 has been much digging these last years into the Scriptures 
 and into the earliest records of Christianity. As the archeol- 
 ogists and the philologists and other '^ologists" have dug 
 deep in their attempts to unearth the truth that lies hidden 
 under the dust of twenty centuries, some of that dust has 
 been scattered about and has flown into the eyes of Smith 
 and he has run away fearing that something terrible has 
 happened to his religion. His fears have not been allayed 
 when he has seen other learned folk delving into the soul 
 itself in a study of the psychology of religion. Smith does 
 not pretend to know just what this study has actually de- 
 veloped, but the net result in his own thinking is that "it 
 is all beyond him." To Smith, God is no longer a reality; 
 he is just a concept. As a Methodist preacher once put it, 
 "He is afraid to reach up a hand in prayer to touch the 
 throne of the Almighty without looking back over his 
 shoulder to see if some psychologist has written some new 
 article that might make him modify his faith." 
 
 Smith's Morals Are Still Good. But in spite of all 
 his perplexities Smith is a good and honorable man and 
 his conscience is hitting on every cylinder. Why? Because 
 long ago in his youth he walked with God and talked with 
 him as a Father. With the help of God he formed habits 
 of mind and conduct that were clean and self-respecting. 
 He learned to look upon the human body as a temple of 
 the Holy Spirit. He learned to reverence humanity and he 
 regarded human personality as something made in the 
 image of God. The walks and talks with God are gone now 
 for Smith. The glory of life has faded into the light 
 of common day, but the habits of conduct and the sensi- 
 tive conscience remain. The question is, can Smith pass 
 on to his children his conscience, his habits of conduct, his 
 morals, and his spirit without the God that inspired them, 
 without the religion that nurtured them? 
 
172 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 A Substitute for God. Well, Smith has been trying it. 
 He has been telling his children that this and that act is 
 "unsocial" and the children laugh and ask, "What of it?" 
 He tells them it is selfish, and they answer, "Why not?" 
 and finally he falls back in desperation upon the vague 
 threat that they will get into trouble and the children chuck 
 him under the chin and say, "Who cares?" He tries to 
 get them interested in humanitarian effort, community work, 
 social service, settlement work, and so forth, and they enjoy 
 it just as they enjoy any new game — until the novelty 
 wears off. He urges that it is their duty to carry on, to help 
 the sick, to relieve the distressed, to do everything in their 
 power, not only in charity, but in the actual making of 
 life more livable for the other fellow — to make justice and 
 mercy and the milk of human kindness cover the earth as 
 the waters cover the sea. The children are puzzled. They 
 want to know what is duty and who started it anyway. 
 Poor Smith! He finds humanitarianism a poor substitute 
 for God. 
 
 There Is No Substitute for God. The redeeming 
 fact about Smith is that he has been coming honestly to 
 recognize that there is no substitute for God. Smith can- 
 not pass on to his children his moral standards, his respect 
 for human personality, his reverence for the divinity in 
 human nature, his spirit of service, without the God that 
 inspired them, and the religion that nurtured them. When 
 this realization dawns upon him, he lifts to heaven the 
 old petition: "Lord, restore my soul. Give me back my faith 
 in thee — not for my sake only, but for these children 
 who will take my place when I am gone." The answer to 
 that petition has always been the same. The Father meets 
 the prodigal while he is still far from home. It is the glory 
 of the Christian religion that it promises the restoration of 
 all things. "I will restore unto you the years the locust 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 173 
 
 hath eaten; that the canker worm and the palmer worm 
 have destroyed." So Smith takes God back into his home 
 and old joys back into his life. 
 
 The Christian Home of To-Morrow. The brightest 
 ray in our hope for to-morrow is the fact that a new Chris- 
 tian home is emerging out of the spiritual chaos of the last 
 few years. A growing host of men and women have fought 
 their way through the barbed entanglements of theological 
 doubts, through the alleged differences of science and re- 
 ligion, through all the mental suffering that marks the 
 progress from a faith that is traditional to a faith that is 
 vital. And having persevered they have conquered. They 
 nave won "God out of knowledge and good out of infinite 
 pain, sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain." They 
 are establishing Christian homes — homes of comradeship 
 with each other and with God. "In plenty and in want, in 
 joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health," they abide with 
 him. It is a happy comradeship, an abundant life. In those 
 homes "bringing up the children in the nurture and ad- 
 monition of the Lord" doesn't mean sending them to Sun- 
 day school an hour a week. It means training them to do 
 justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, seek- 
 ing his Kingdom and his righteousness first. Religion in 
 these homes is not a negative thing of "don'ts," but a posi- 
 tive thing of faith and hope and love. Religious instruction 
 is daily and systematic and covers every human relation- 
 ship — individual, social, sexual, political, industrial, and 
 artistic. Mr. Dallas Lore Sharp gives us a picture of such 
 a home.^ 
 
 Each of us has his own Bible, and one of the boys is 
 Bible warden. He puts them on after breakfast, as the old 
 servant in the Ruskin household put on the dessert. Every 
 morning, as soon as breakfast is over, and while we are still 
 
 1 "Education for Individuality." Atlantic Monthly, June 1920. 
 
174 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 at the table (it is fatal to rise), the Bibles are brought in 
 and passed around, and beginning at the head of the table, 
 we read aloud in turn, dividing the chapter by verses equally 
 among us. Seven mornings a week, D.V., we do this, and 
 on Sunday mornings, for years, those seven chapters were 
 reviewed, discussed, and illustrated with a series of great 
 Bible pictures. Besides this, we studied Toy's "History of 
 the Religion of Israel," and read a life of Christ which I had 
 the temerity to write for one of our popular magazines when 
 a theological student; we followed Paul in his wanderings; 
 but the daily reading was and is the big thing — right along 
 from day to day, dry places, hard places, and bad places, 
 never missing a line — not even the numbering of the 
 tribes, the building of the tabernacle, the who-begat-whom 
 chapters, Ruth and Rahab and the Scarlet Woman: every- 
 body, everything, just as it reads, without a quiver, and with 
 endless joy and zest. 
 
 If it is a "dry" place like the building of the tabernacle, 
 so much the better lesson in patience and concentration; if 
 it is a "bad" place (and there are some horrid spots in the 
 Old Testament), the children had better have it frankl> 
 with us, than on the sly, and have it early while their only 
 interest in it is the interest of fact. If it is a "hard" place, 
 as it was this morning in the fifteenth chapter of Joshua, 
 we lick it up, to see who can do the cleanest job of pro- 
 nunciation, who can best handle his tongue, and make 
 most poetry out of the cities with their villages. 
 
 But there are the beautiful places, the thrilling places — 
 the story, the poetry, the biography, the warning, the ex- 
 hortation, the revelation, the priest, the prophet, the Great 
 Teacher, the twelve disciples, kings and common people, 
 and everywhere the presence of God. 
 
 I have not tried to shape the children's religious faith, 
 that being a natural thing without need of shaping, unless, 
 distorted by dogma, it must be reshaped till it again be- 
 comes a little child's. I have learned religion of them, 
 not they of me, with my graduate degree in theology, which 
 I would so gladly give in exchange for the heart of a little 
 child! 
 
 We read the Bible as we read other books, for it is like 
 other books, only better ; and so we read it of tener — every 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHILDREN 175 
 
 morning after breakfast; we then say The Lord's Prayer 
 together, and do the best we can to sing the Doxology, little 
 Jersey, the dog, joining in. This makes a good beginning 
 for the day; and a very good beginning, too, for language, 
 and literature, and life. 
 
 To help men and women to establish such homes is the 
 most fundamental task of the Presbyterian Church and of 
 every other church. 
 
 Questions for Discussion 
 
 1. In what sense is Christian education a missionary 
 
 enterprise? 
 
 2. How important to Jesus was the child? How far has 
 
 the Protestant Church lived up to his estimate? 
 How many hours of religious training per week, for 
 example, does the average Protestant child have? 
 Compare with the average Catholic child. With 
 the average Jewish child. What are the facts also 
 concerning the present enrollment and attendance 
 in Protestant Sunday schools? 
 
 3. From the report of the war chaplnins, what further 
 
 light is obtained concerning the efficiency or in- 
 efficiency of Protestant religious education in America 
 to date? 
 
 4. What are "Sabbath-school missionaries*'? How valu- 
 
 able is their work? {Note its intensive as well as 
 its extensive character.) How completely do they 
 cover the field? How many children, for example, 
 still fail to receive religious instruction? 
 
 5. What was the first object of the Daily Vacation Bible 
 
 School? What other value has it proved to possess? 
 
176 UNFINISHED BUSINESS 
 
 What may individual churches do for the immigrant 
 children in their vicinity? 
 
 6. Why is week-day religious instruction needed? How 
 
 may it be provided for? With what effort? What 
 action taken by the Board of Education of New York 
 City offers a beginning for such work? Has any 
 city near you taken similar action? 
 
 7. How may improvement be made in the quality of 
 
 instruction offered as to m^a^erial, method, and 
 teacher? 
 
 8. What is the responsibility of parents in the home? 
 
 Discuss fully showing difficulties and ways and means 
 of *^ carrying on.'' 
 
 9. Describe an ideal Christian home in its religious train- 
 
 ing of children. 
 
Princeton Theoloairai c« 
 
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