a INGLESIDE SEMINARY IN PICTURE AND STORY ■By CLAIRF, PEARSON ALTER 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Board of National Missions OF THE Presbyterian Chi rch in the It S. A. 156 Fifth Avenue. New York, N. Y. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/inglesideseminarOOalte INGLESIDE SEMINARY IN PICTURE AND STORY Claire Pearson Alter T his evening, in spite of the ceaseless downpour, I spent with a friend of long ago. “No mulling over the ‘dear old days’ the evening you are with me !’’ she had said in her letter. “I want to know what you have been doing all these years.” So, as a sort of tangible evidence of this, I had carried along an envelope of “snap- shots,” some of which told their own story. Settled cozily before the hearthstone which the persis- tent rain made all the more attractive this cool evening, Carolyn began to look over the pictures : “O, are your meals served on the cafeteria plan?” she 3 asked, as she picked up a picture showing a number of girls in caps and aprons standing Ijehind a well-filled counter. Then I told her how much pleasure our class in Domestic Science took in their work and the many ])ractical things they did during the term, and how one day there had ap- peared at each teacher's place at lunch a neat card, announc- ing “Inglenook Cafeteria open at noon Thursday.” (Ingle- nook is the name of the little four-room apartment we con- trived from two large basement rooms and in which our Domestic Science girls do the practical part of their work.) For several Thursdays the faculty’s lunch was served in this way and one day we got this picture, showing some of the good things to eat, as well as the girls who had cooked and served them. "And this — do you have weddings in your school, too?” ”N(.),” I replied, “that is just a little group that was the 4 center of our sewing exhibit one year. The girls ‘made up’ a little [day that was a wedding rehearsal in part and a showing of the bride's trousseau to her maids. Each girl wore a frock she had made for herself for the summer; in this group the little bride's dress is a white organdie ; her maids had voiles in pale colors, their Woolworth hats draped with tarlatan to match; the bouquet holder was made rjf lace paper doilies frona the same well-known store ; the bride's veil is also tarlatan.” '■( )ur sewing room is one of the busiest 2)laces and not (jnly sewing hut aiJi)reciation of i)roj)er color and lines for the different individuals is being taught, and that all takes time and tact. Several hundred dresses are made each year, not to menticMi other garments of various kinds. Our ,Seni(jrs make their Commencement dresses. Even the mem- bers of the class comi)leting the grammar grades make the 5 dresses they wear for their promotion exercises. It really does mean so much to a girl to he able to plan and make her own clothing.” “But let me tell you of this girl,” and I pointecl out one in a recent senior class, “not for anything remarkable that she has done hut just because she is the only jjerson from the village school in a certain community that has completed a high school course during the past thirty years. The man who labored there as teacher all this time died about a year ago and this is the only one of all his pupils that he had the jdeasure of seeing finish even a high school course. But another of his pupils is to graduate next year.” “Why such tipparent lack of ambition for an education?” she asked me. “\\T11,” was m)' answer, “when the school term in many cases is hut five, sometimes only four, and in some jdaces only three months in a year, and hoys and girls are well in the ‘teens’ l)efore they can even think of ‘going ofif to boarding school’ it takes courage and deternnnation 6 along with some money. And the money is mighty slow in coming sometimes. One man sold 2,000 pounds of tobacco and had $13.00 after he had paid the e.xpenses incurred in raising that particular crop. Another cleared exactly $1.00 from his tobacco — and you have no idea the hack-breaking work it is to raise tobacco. Perhaps before long more peo- ple will come to the conclusioji the man reached who said he had ‘decided to quit foolin’ with the stuff and raise some- thin' that'd do somebody some good.’ “And sj)eaking of determination, please look at this pic- ture and try to imagine her sweet soprano as T heard it not long ago when she sang ‘The Holy City.’ You can more easily imagine that than her plowing on her little farm and (knng the other work that usually falls to the farm woman, then somehow finding time to drive to the Sem- inary in her buggy to get the music lesson each week for which she is hungry. ‘‘This tall, dignified- looking girl is another ex- ample of determination. She had been a year in training as a nurse when the State ])assed a law that all candidates for the R.X. degree must have had at least two years in high school work. Jane’s superin- 7 tcnclc'iit is interested in her probationers and talked to me about her taking work here and continuing her training during the summer. She came to us and was able to enter the last year of the grammar grade. She completed that, leading her class, and has now completed her first year of high school. Another }ear of high school must be com- ])leted before she is eligible for her coveted R. X., hut she will do it — she’s that kind. “And here’s another girl whose aim is the same. She was born and reared in Pennsylvania — in the Pittsburgh district — hut was taken out of school when in the fifth grade. When well in her twenties, she determined to become a nurse and, of course, met the same conditions as Jane. She is meeting and conquer- ing them, too. But it is too had that .she is getting this start so late!” “When your girls are graduated from your sc1io(j1,” asked Carolyn, “what do they do?” "Figures have not always been available, hut because of a ‘Letter ^Meeting’ we had in the Christian Endeavor last year, planned just .so that we might hear from some of the Alumnae, I can tell you now that thirty-nine of the fifty- 8 eight who have been graduated since we came to Ingleside have been teaching nearly every year since graduation, and are going to school in the summer. Five have married ; two are in business ; two in training for nurses ; four have been in college and several others plan to go when a bit better prepared financially. Six out of this year's class of nine plan to teach. “But I must tell you of something we did this winter : we really surprised ourselves, for it all had to be done out- side of regular school hours and, you must remember, our resources are very limited. The pastor of the little church our students attend on the second and fourth Sundays asked that each class in the Seminary make a contribution to a drive to clear off the church debt. It looked absolutely impossible for us to help, but we set our thinking caps in place. “As a result a class in the grammar grade decided to make cookies and candy and sell to those who would buy. 'I'he second year high school class gave them a splendid opportunity to do this by jnitting on a play as their way of earning money. The school does not pay admission to these entertainments, but there was a fair crowd from the village and the grammar girls had all too soon .sold out ‘their best things to eat.’ 'I'he play was a real success, too. "The other grammar grade class had also jilanned an entertainment, but as that looked like ‘holding up’ the ])ublic too often they gave a promissory note for $15.00 to be paid three months later, 'fhis they did with a de- lightful little entertainment and had some money over which they gave to another school cause that was on foot just then. 9 “The first year high school girls did some extra work that was sorely needed just then — and that there had seemed no way of doing — and thus earned their money. Juniors and Seniors went together and got up a bazaar, partly of small articles they made, partly of things of their own which they donated. As this was not many weeks be- fore Christmas, it was a real help to many of us for our smaller Christmas remembrances. \\’e turned in as our coutrihution to the drive $124. “And here’s a little girl I want you to notice particu- larly. She has led her class each of the three years she has been at Ingleside with averages for her first three years in high school of respectively 93, 95 and 97. Earnest to an unusual degree, she has the keenest sense of humor I be- lieve I have ever seen in a girl of her age. Yet just in her 10 simple school girl fash- ion she's ever giving ns food for thought. For instance, she said one day this winter : ‘As children grow to manhood and womanhood they always bring about a change in the hcane either for more happiness or trouble.’ Maybe you have heard the idea expressed in just that way — I hadn’t. "This group of four- teen tells a story of much work and achievement in contest work along the lines marked out by the National W. C. T. U. Every girl in the group has won a silver medal ; eight of them gold ones : and two of the eight have won grand gold ones. We hope to contest some time for the diamond medal, hut it’s rather a ‘forlorn ho])e,’ as, of course, the girls go far and near after finishing school, and it’s hard to get them to- gether for the necessary drill. ‘T want to tell you. too. about the work many of our girl do during the summer in the Sunday School \''acation ]>ands which are organized in our boarding schools by the Sunday School IMis.sionaries. Ingleside has three suc- cessive years won the silver loving cup given by Catawba Synod to the Vacation Bible School Band, ‘accomplish- ing the largest results in proportion to its enrollment.’ This 11 The mothers of these girls were at otie time enrolled at Ingleside Seminar’^ cu]) is presented by the Department of Sunday School ]\Iissions. And I just do wish you could have been there to hear the applause at the Commencement exercises this }ear when it was announced that Ingleside had for the third time won the cup and so. according to the plan, had it now ‘for keeps.’ But I've talked the whole evening and the ‘half has not been told.' and since we re leaving town ‘soon in the mo'nin’. we must run along home." ‘‘Yes. we must, but next year I'll expect to hear about the Daily \ acation Bible Schools your girls have had this summer." “I'd like to broadcast it. And now, ‘Till we meet again, goodnight and goodbye." And another day was ended. 12