PAW, wise. UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL FLAG The Work of the Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior in Its Fiftieth Year 1868 - 1918 By MRS. L. O. LEE 19 South La Salle Street, Room 1315, Chicago UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL FLAG The Work of the Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior in its Fiftieth Year 1868-1918 Mrs. L. O. Lee. During its fifty years of life the Woman’s Board of Mis¬ sions of the Interior has supported for longer or shorter periods no less than two hundred and fifty women on the mis¬ sion fields. Seventy-nine of these women have served in China, sixty-one in Turkey, forty-four in Japan, nineteen in India, seventeen in Africa, eight in the Balkan States, six in Mexico, six in Micronesia, two in Ceylon, one in Persia and seven were sent for work among the Dakota Indians. Between the years 1880 and 1882 the work for the Indians was transferred to the Amer¬ ican Missionary Association. The work in Persia was as¬ sumed by the Presbyterian Board when in 1872 the Pres¬ byterians withdrew from the American Board and with them went Miss Jennie Dean, one of the W. B. M. I. mis¬ sionaries adopted during its first year. The missionary who has given the longest period of service was Mrs. Josephine L. Coffing, who served forty-nine consecutive years in the Cen¬ tral Turkey Mission. Miss Mary H. Porter's years in China numbered forty-one but she has to her credit full fifty years of missionary service for whether in China or America she will always be a missionary. Miss Martha Barrows has been forty-two years in Japan and is still active. Miss Mary H. Porter in 1868 First Missionary of the W. B M. I. 1 During the early years it was customary for the appeal for workers needed to be made to all three Woman's Boards and for the one which could find or was financially able to support the new missionary to send her to the field. Gradu¬ ally, however, the policy was adopted of making each Wom¬ an’s Board responsible for definite institutions, for filling the vacancies occurring in these and for developing the work for women and children in certain mission stations. Thus it is that at the close of fifty years the W. B. M. I. has mission¬ aries in fewer fields than in its first decade, but in those places it has well established schools, hospitals and evangelistic work instead of the scattered and weaker beacon lights of the earlier years. Through the first four decades the Turkey missions re¬ ceived much the largest share of the appointees though by 1900 China and Japan were close seconds. Of the sixty-eight missionaries the W. B. M. I. has sent to the field since 1909, thirty-eight have gone to China, eleven to Japan and only nine to Turkey. No doubt the years immediately following the close of the world war will again see an influx of workers into the field hitherto embraced by the Turkish Empire, as the W. B. M. I. has already accepted responsibility for twenty- live of the “Turkey Band” of 175 new recruits the American Board and the three Woman’s Boards are undertaking to place on the field as soon as the war closes. In all fields the principle prevails of placing responsi¬ bility upon native workers and developing self-support as rapidly as possible. In the early years it was necessary to persuade parents to allow their daughters to attend mission schools and such arguments as relief from their support were offered as an inducement but that is long since a thing of the past and the call everywhere is for enlarged buildings and equipment sufficient to accommodate those eager and waiting to come, even though fees charged are large in proportion to the average income of the constituency of the institutions. Everywhere missionaries and mission institutions are highly respected by government officials who often take great pride in showing our school or hospital as one of the notable attractions of their city. Many instances of friendly regard shown missionaries in Turkey during the present war witness to the kindly feeling of officials even of a hostile government. It is but natural that missionary work should reflect with 2 a fair degree of accuracy the thinking of the church at home during the half century. In accordance with the spirit of the church as a whole, the earlier missionary effort centered around the idea of rescuing as brands from the burning* a few of the millions who were each day perishing without Christ, but even as the Church Universal is learning in these latter years that its mission in the world is not to save a few out of the world but so to transform the springs of life and action that communities and nations shall be transformed into accord with the teachings of Christ, so has the mission¬ ary’s conception of his task and the means of its accomplish¬ ment broadened to include many forms of industrial and phil¬ anthropic work. Thus it has come about that in almost every station some of the missionary women are today giving them¬ selves to the task of making industrial and social conditions more tolerable for the native women. Needle work, cooking and teaching the principles of hygiene and sanitation form a part of the curriculum of every school and the opening of orphanages and vocational training has followed close upon the heels of such great disasters as Armenian massacres, famine in India or last year’s floods in China. No doubt it is largely these by-products of missions which, together with the work of the medical missionary, have so commended the work of missions to the Rockefeller Foun¬ dation, to the British Government in India, and to several lesser organizations as to win very considerable grants of money each year to be administered by the missionaries. Through all the changes of the fifty years one guiding star has ever shown more and more clearly before the Wom¬ an’s Board, viz. the strategic importance of the home in the process of making the world Christian. So long as three-fourths of the women of the world are secluded in zenana or harem or bound by the superstition and dread customs of paganism, so long as' three-fourths of the children born into the world must receive their training by just these women, so long is the universal task of making the world safe impossible. In our work for women and chil¬ dren we are at the strategic center of the whole great under¬ taking. The degree of success already attained and the size of the task still waiting can perhaps be best judged, not by an accumulation of statistics, but rather by a brief survey of the work of the Board as it is in this its fiftieth year. 3 JAPAN KOBE — College —Miss Charlotte B. DeForest, Miss Sarah M. Field, Miss Edith E. Husted, Miss Susan A. Searle, Miss Mary E. Stowe, Miss Grace H. Stowe, Miss Nettie L. Rupert, Miss Ida W. Har¬ rison. Evangelistic School —Miss Martha J. Barrows, Miss Gertrude Cozad, Mrs. Jane H. Stanford. Kindergarten and Training School —Miss Annie L. Howe, Miss Kather¬ ine F. Fanning. MATSUYAMA- —Miss H. Frances Parmelee. OKAYAMA— -Miss Mary E. Wainwright.* To some Japan as a mission field is an anomaly. Be¬ cause her government maintains a high and honorable stand¬ ard in international relations we are apt to judge the social and ethical standards of the rank and file of her people by our own Christian ideals, forgetting that for 1,500 years her religious and educational roots have been grounded in Con¬ fucianism and Buddhism. Christianity is now mightily shap¬ ing the views of the people, and Christian women—wives and mothers in the homes—are most imperatively needed. The W. B. M. I. is striving to raise up Christian leaders for Japan’s womanhood through three educational institu¬ tions in the city of Kobe and through social work in Matsu¬ yama and Okayama. Kobe has a population of over 550,000 and is said to be growing more rapidly than any other city in the Empire. It is Japan’s greatest commercial port and also one of its chief educational centers. EVANGELISTIC SCHOOL The students of the Evangelistic School for Women have come from all over Japan ; two are Korean ; three are Presby¬ terians supported by their own denomination ; four are fian¬ cees of young evangelists ; seven are graduates of Christian schools; eleven of public schools; six have had higher courses; thirteen have taught school. The course of study includes not only the Bible, but a goodly amount of historical, theological and pedagogical work with music and practical training in Sunday Schools and visiting homes. This practical work is as varied as the exceptional privi¬ leges of a Christian center with long established churches and experienced workers, combined with the unevangelized dis¬ tricts of the city and suburbs, allow. Pupils who have com¬ pleted two years of study are required to have as a part of their third year work five months of practical field work in connection with some church or missionarv. ^Deceased, 4 Of 104 graduates, fifty-three are now in direct work, fourteen have died, fourteen are working for other denomi¬ nations, fifteen are wives of Kumiai pastors, eleven are Bible women under the mission, eight are in Japanese employ, two are employed jointly by the mission and Japanese. Their aggregate length of service is 855 years. ’ This institution has for five years past been calling loudly for a new American teacher. Where is the well-trained young woman ready to share in this far-reaching work? Missionaries and students are much interested in various philanthropic institutions in the city, especially a Home for Discharged Prisoners with its new department for delinquent boys, a Woman’s Welfare Association whose work it is to befriend friendless women stranded in Kobe, and a Blind Asylum which has just succeeded in securing a home of its own. THE GLORY KINDERGARTEN TRAINING SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN The class of seventeen graduating from the Training School in March one afternoon gave an “At Home” including a music recital, a foreign tea for the guests, and an exhibit in two large rooms of the work they have done in art, nature, Bible, kindergarten hand work and theoretical work. The graduating exercises were held in the Y. M. C. A. and were a delightful practical demonstration of the work these young women are prepared to do for the children of Japan. A new class of seventeen took the place of the graduating class for whom there were more good positions open than they could fill. Miss Howe emphasizes the fact that the time has come in the his¬ tory of kindergartens when • each one should be obedient to its own vision. She says, “Our particular vision in Glory Kindergarten is the charm of leading the children out to a broad view of the world and to 5 an ennobling conception of life.’’ With this in view they have given the children a study of nations and their individual gifts to the rest of the world. After a series of lessons on thankfulness to God, the children made a gift to Belgium of sixty yen ($30). Although Miss Howe was in America for several months her lieutenants carried on the work satisfactorily. A new plant for Glory Kindergarten and Training School is one of the objectives of our Jubilee Building Fund. Toward the $50,000 needed for the purchase of land and erec¬ tion of building $13,721.84 are now in hand. Another call of this institution is for a young kinder- gartner equipped with the best training as well as the mis¬ sionary spirit who shall be associated with Miss Howe and Miss Fanning. KOBE COLLEGE An enrollment of forty-six in the college department, 291 in the Academy and nineteen in Music, is the attendance rec¬ ord of Kobe College for the school year 1917-18. The faculty numbers thirty-four, seven of whom are American women, eighteen Japanese women and nine Japanese men. Of the students 118 are Christians, while 155 come from homes in which one or more members are Christian. The college has inaugurated faculty lectures and group conferences to stimulate intellectual growth among its faculty members and rejoices in the return of one teacher from Amer¬ ica with a degree from Clark University. The Alumnae Association is proving its devotion not only by efforts toward an endowment but by a gift at Christ¬ mas time to augment the salaries of teachers who in these days are finding it very hard to live on what the college can pay. The alumnae endowment fund has now reached the sum of 18,000 yen ($9,000) and the association is employing a part time worker to push the cause. In this war time, when the Atlantic is closed to casual travelers, Kobe is a stopping- place for people from Africa, India and Russia on their way to America, and the year has brought to the college unusual richness in the line of chapel talks and other addresses. The social service of the student body included work through the National W. C. T. U. and the National Christian woman’s movement for the abolition of licensed prostitution; special work for Armenian orphans, and the packing of two 6 Kobe College Girls with Thanksgiving Offerings Christmas boxes of utilities and toys for the Smith College Relief Unit in France. The school buildings were lent in July for one of the summer conferences of the Y. W. C. A. and the seventy students from the school who registered found the meetings very inspiring. A member of the last American Board Deputation to Japan says, “I recently had the privilege of wide travel in that empire (Japan) and I was deeply impressed with the range and the depth of the impression which the work of Kobe College had made. Not only has it touched the woman¬ hood of Japan profoundly during the last forty years, but it has had a most considerable part in raising the ideals of womanhood for the whole nation.” Another member of the Deputation felicitates the W. B. M. I. and the college on its president, Miss Charlotte B. DeForest, of whom he says: “So highly is she esteemed in educational circles in Japan that she was offered the presi¬ dency of the recently established Union Woman’s University at Tokyo—a position she declined that she might remain with Kobe College.” Evidently the time has come when we must seriously face the question of securing adequate endowment and much larger equipment for Kobe College. To quote again from one who has very recently studied the opportunity: “The College should have resources equal to those of any college for women in America and it is doubtful whether any college in this country is so indispensable in its place as is Kobe College in Japan. Contributions to its resources would con¬ stitute one of the wisest of Christian investments.” With the beginning of its fall term Kobe College has made a direct contribution to the war in allowing Miss Sarah M. Field to accept a call from the American Red Cross to emergency work in Siberia. She goes as dietician and will oversee Christian Japanese women as they serve in canteens or in caring for refugees. She left Tokyo for Vladivostok on September first, outfitted in gray uniform, scarlet lined cape, kit bag and the cheerful heart that packs up all its troubles and smiles! MATSUYAMA Miss H. Frances Parmelee in Matsuyama is doing neigh¬ borhood and social work in connection with factories where girls are employed. A large number of girls work in these 8 factories who are on the average younger than girls similarly employed in America and a much larger proportion of them are away from home living in factory boarding houses. Of 1.000 girl workers in Matsuyama factories in 1910 only 386 were above twenty years of age and seven were under twelve. Only 280 of the 1,000 lived at home with their parents. Many of the men employed in the same factories are mentally and morally of a low grade and are a constant menace to these young girls. Some of the factory boarding houses are little better than places of prostitution. The W. B. M. I. rejoices to hold out through Miss Parmelee a helping hand to these helpless ones. OKAYAMA Miss Mary E. Wainwright, for thirty-two years our missionary, entered into rest on July 1, 1918. For most of that long period her activities centered in Hokubu Church in Okayama and this church is her true monument. Through visiting the homes and teaching Bible and English classes, she wrought into the lives of Japanese youth of both sexes her own clear vision of the realities and values of life and there are many who call her blessed. In early years she adopted a Japanese boy who is now an honored and useful pastor. CHINA SOUTH CHINA MISSIOTV — Canton —Girls’ Boarding- School—Miss Mabel E. Daniels, Miss S. Josephine Davis, Miss Ruth E. Mulliken, Miss Helen Tow. Normal School —Miss Edna Lowrey. FOOCHOW MISSION — Foochow— Evangelistic and Philanthropic Work— Miss Emily S. Hartwell. Ingtai —Girls’ Boarding School and Evangelistic Work—Miss L. Vera McReynolds, Miss Elizabeth Waddell. SHAOWU MISSION — Shaowu —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Frances K. Bement. Hospital—Dr. Lucy P. Bement. Evangelistic School—Miss Josephine Walker. Kien Ning —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Grace A. Funk. NORTH CHINA MISSION — Peking —Union Woman’s College—Miss Luella Miner, Miss Katherine P. Crane, Miss Anna M. Lane, Miss Mary- ette H. Lum. Bridgman Academy—Miss Lucy I. Mead, Miss Louise E. Miske, Miss Anne B. Kelley. Kindergarten and Training School—Miss Adelle L. Tenney. Evangelistic Work—Mrs. Mary P. Ament. Tientsin —Evangelistic Work—Miss Jessie E. Payne. Tehchow —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Mabel I. Huggins, Miss Alice C. Reed. Evangelistic—Miss E. Gertrude Wyckoff, Miss Esme V. Ander¬ son. Hospital—Dr. Amy A. Metcalf, Miss Myra L. Sawyer, 9 Lintsing —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Ethel M. Long. Evangelistic—Miss Edith C. Tallmon. Fenchow —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Josie E. Horn, Miss Vera Holmes. Evangelistic—Miss Grace McConnaughey, Miss Cora May Walton. Hospital—Dr. Clara A. Nutting. Taikuhsien —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Alzina C. Munger. Evangelistic—Miss Flora K. Heebner, Miss Gladys M. Williams. Hospital—Miss Alma Atzel. One turns to China today in a very expectant frame of mind. So much has been said and written of the vitality of an ancient people who can rise and cast out an antiquated form of government that one comes to expect that in all re¬ spects the people of the new republic have set their feet on the swift road to enlightenment. It is therefore with something of a shock that we discover that the custom of infanticide still prevails, that the dead bodies of unwelcome girl babies are still placed upon shelves in the open street to await the rounds of the dead collector and that hungry dogs often reach after and devour them ; that in any interior city foot-binding, far from being a thing of the past, is still so prevalent that one going casually into the street can hardly escape the cries of little girls having their feet bound. The women of China are still bound quite as much by their own superstition and conservatism as by any restric¬ tions placed upon them from without, and the fact that in the coast cities and in centers of missionary effort many women are throwing off the old shackles is itself fraught with an element of danger. What is the W. B. M. I. doing to lift and guide China’s womanhood ? canton South China Mission In the great city of Canton, a city of 2,000,000 popula¬ tion, is located our South China Girls’ School. Though begun as a day school, a boarding department was opened in 1903. The school has one good building which accommodates thirty- four girls. So many have been the girls seeking entrance that temporary buildings have been erected to accommodate twenty or twenty-five more but for the last two years the school has been obliged to refuse more girls than it has ac¬ cepted. An additional dormitory, a school building, and a home for the American teachers are immediate necessities and are to be provided through our Jubilee Building Fund, Some of the girls are wealthy, some poor, but all sweep their 10 own rooms, make their own beds, and help with the cooking - . The curriculum corresponds to the first eight grades of Amer¬ ican public schools with the addition of Bible study. Prac¬ tically every student becomes a Christian before leaving the school. The Y. W. C. A. is a great influence in their lives. The girls upon graduation become teachers or home-makers. After visiting the home into which one of her girls has gone, Miss Mulliken says: “The rooms were neat and clean. The mother herself was well dressed, with a halo of love and devotion about her, and best of all the children, even the baby, were as clean as soap and water could make them. It was a happy and contented family. If only one such home in a generation were the result of Christian education it would still be worth while.” A crying need is for better trained Chinese teachers and the W. B. M. I. has accepted a share of the responsibility for a Union Normal School in which four missions co-operate. Miss Uowrey is our representative in this school. Foochow Mission An outstanding event of the year in the Foochow Mis¬ sion is the elevation of the station of Shaowu into a separate mission, to be known henceforth as the Shaowu Mission, a step deemed desirable because of the difiference in living con¬ ditions and language in the interior provinces from those prevailing in Foochow. FOOCHOW The work of the W. B. M. I. in the great coast city is chiefly evangelistic, our onlv missionary now there being Miss Emily Hartwell. She is surely a “live missionary” for she not only supervises our Boarding Station Class for women and a great variety of activities among the women of the Chris¬ tian churches, but is also the guiding spirit in several lines of union philanthropic and industrial work to which the Chi¬ nese themselves, Christian and non-Christians, are large con¬ tributors. As illustrating the scope of a missionary's “out¬ side” duties it may be interesting to list these activities. Miss Hartwell is a member of the Fukien Uniform Examination Committee, a member of the Board of Managers and of the Board of Trustees of the Christian Herald Fukien Industrial Homes, secretary and Foochow treasurer for Beacon Hill Farm Association, and one of the promoters of the hoped for 11 Chinese hospital of which Dr. Hie-ding Ling is to have charge. The last named work brings her into close contact with offi¬ cial and gentry classes and leading business men. 1 he Chris¬ tian Herald Industrial Homes are orphanages in whose sup¬ port and management leading missionaries and Chinese pas¬ tors of the Anglican Mission, the Methodist Mission and the American Board unite. Beacon Hill Farm not only gives to the orphan boys training in agriculture and an opportunity to become independent, self-respecting citizens but has proved a veritable health-preserver for many who were physically below par. An industrial school for girls is a part of this important work. Little wonder that recently Miss Hartwell received the rare honor of special recognition from government officials. The Mayor of the Ming Hao magistracy presented to the Governor of the Province, who in turn passed on to the Pres¬ ident of the Republic in Peking, a document enumerating Miss Hartwell's labors of love and asking for a “special token of grace from the Government in the form of a medal together with a response of appreciation which will tell others of Miss Hartwell’s philanthropy and emulate them to follow in her foot-steps.” INGTAI Is forty miles up the river from Foochow in the center of a remarkably beautiful mountain district. The school girls come from small villages nestling in the valleys between mountain ranges. The people are poor but very industrious as they must needs be to eke out a living from their tiny fields cultivated by slow-moving buffalo cows. No amount of labor is counted too great for redeeming every inch of till¬ able soil. The school girls are bright and attractive but many are allowed to study only a few years and then are married. They receive the beginnings of a good general education, much training in the Bible and the principles of Christianity, and are all taught cleanliness and sanitation. Many become eager Christian workers and the school girls during their summer vacations do much to overcome prejudice and win the people. Miss Waddell thus describes her visit with a Bible woman to one of the larger villages: “The home was a por¬ tion of a large house and soon so many women gathered that the capacity of the room was exhausted and we went to the large hall which is found in most Chinese houses. All the 12 next day and Sunday afternoon we continued this house to house visiting, always receiving a cordial reception even though the presence of idols and ancestral tablets gave evi¬ dence that the home was heathen. I suppose that in that vil¬ lage we gave the gospel message to at least 250 women and as many children. Occasionally a man or two was in the audience. In one place our coming broke up a native school held in a room adjoining the public hall and I felt like apolo¬ gizing to the poor old school master.’’ Shaowu Mission Shaowu has long been one of the best known and best loved of mission centers to the W. B. M. I. workers, for here we have a quartette of finely managed and efficient mission institutions and a quartette of the finest of women in charge of them. Dr. Lucy Bement is putting her very life into the Sarah Parker Memorial Hospital for women and children; Miss Josephine Walker has charge of the school for married women and of various allied evangelistic activities; Miss Frances K. Bement superintends “the most interesting school for girls in all China” with ninety girls in the boarding de¬ partment; and Miss Funk has built up a successful system of Day Schools in the city and the country round about. Inci¬ dentally each of these missionaries tours the country held and seizes every opportunity for coming into close contact with Chinese homes. But they have done more than simply “carry on” successfully. Like the polyp, they have multi¬ plied themselves by division and Miss Funk now signs herself “Your Kien Ning missionary.” She tells the story in this wise: “These are Red Letter Days! For years I have been dreaming of a Girls’ Boarding School at Kien Ning, three days’ journey from Shaowu, and farther, oh, very much far¬ ther from Foochow or any other place you ever heard of. The best description I can give of it is just that it is ‘some¬ where in China.' For the last few months the dream has been taking tangible form, and now behold a school! We haven’t any grounds, we haven't any appropriation, we haven’t any doctor or nurse, and we haven't any real equipment. But we have twenty-three bright, interesting girls in the boarding department and eighteen more in the day school. We have rented a Chinese house adequate only for the twenty-seven people now filling it. We have a few desks, tables, benches, beds, stools and boards, a borrowed clock, a second-hand 13 hanging lamp, an old baby organ used eleven years in a chapel and one lone missionary. How are we financing the school Though the district is the very poorest of our field, the girls have paid one-half the cost of their board, and the Shaowu girls consented to an increase in what they pay for their own board that Ivien Ning girls might have a part of their school appropriation. The Shaowu Girls’ School has also paid the salaries of two of our girl teachers as their Thankoffering and I paid the salary of the man who taught Classics for us. The Woman’s Society of the Shaowu East Gate Church gave $10 and a few friends in America have sent gifts. Without Mr. Goddard’s help we could never have paid our rent." How the glow of fine enthusiasm on the part of Miss Funk, Miss Bement, the Shaowu school girls and Christian women warms our own hearts ! Surely we cannot fail to find the $300 they ask from the Board to keep this Jubilee School going in 1919 or the $3,000 they need to provide a permanent home for the school. Still less can we fail them when we know that those girls having their first touch with a Chris¬ tian boarding school, and out of all their poverty sent a Jubi¬ lee gift of $3, to the Board and over $4 to the flood sufferers in North China. Both Kien Ning and Shaowu are also calling for an offer¬ ing of life, for Miss Funk must not be allowed long to remain the one lone missionary in the new station and brave Miss Bement in Shaowu must not be expected to do two women's work because she has so unselfishly consented to her asso¬ ciate’s reaching out to meet the new need. Dr. Lucy also must shortly have an associate in her exacting hospital work. The alternative will be a break in her health and the work left with no one in charge. North China Mission The past year in North China will go down in history as the year of the great flood and pneumonic plague. In the province of Chihli to the south of Peking and in the Shantung province whole counties were submerged, houses and crops destroyed, and the people brought to the verge of starvation. A little later in the year practically all the missionary doctors and their helpers gave themselves to a heroic fight against the pneumonic plague which was working great havoc in the provinces of Shansi and parts of Chihli. 14 PEKING In China's capital we have a system of schools from Kindergarten to College, with also a training school for kin- clergarten teachers, a Bible Training School, and a varied evangelistic and social work. o # # The college and the Bible Training School are union in¬ stitutions in whose support and development the American, Methodist, and American Presbyterian Boards, and the Lon¬ don Missionarv Society are interested as well as ourselves. Bridgman Academy serves the whole of the North China Mission, schools of other stations sending their girls here for higher training. NORTH CHINA UNION WOMAN’S COLLEGE As yet only a comparatively small number of selected girls reach the college but these represent many provinces and all classes of society. Our Jubilee Building Fund made it possible two and one-half years ago to purchase the estate of an impoverished Manchu Duke as a home for the college. The dilapidated buildings were repaired and transformed into dormitory, library, recitation halls and missionary residence, a truly sig¬ nificant transformation. The students numbered forty-five, thirty-six of whom have done only college work. These col¬ lege girls, true to the spirit of Christianity, have been stirred by the needs of the flood sufferers and last fall asked to have thirty-five orphan girls committed to their care. They gave an entertainment to raise money, rented a Chinese house and engaged a Christian Chinese woman to live with their little flock. They themselves became responsible for the manage¬ ment of the household, for the children’s sewing, and for much of the teaching. As the months slipped by it was evident that the lessons of unselfish love and service were doing much for the college girls themselves while they served the needy little ones. This Union College, the only institution to which the daughters of the millions of the northern half of China may look for a college education, has been understaffed and for Miss Miner’s sake as also for the sake of the work, we rejoice that its faculty is this year being strengthened by the addi¬ tion of several members; Mrs. Alice Brown Frame, who brings a rich missionary experience as well as rare preparation to this work, Miss Anna M. Lane for the Science Department, a 15 worker each from the Methodist and Presbyterian Boards and lastly our own Miss Orvis to serve here while she waits to re-enter Turkey. BRIDGMAN ACADEMY Thirteen girls were graduated from the regular course in Bridgman Academy and four from the kindergarten course. Of these Academy girls Miss Mead says: “Some were bright students, some were very poor students, and some betweeners. Some were from Christian homes, some from anti-Christian homes. Two sisters, Christian at heart but from non-Chris¬ tian homes, were the only ones of the class who had not openly taken their stand for Christ by joining the church. Another two had gone through many stages of questionings and doubts but had been greatly helped by the Y. W. C. A. summer conference." Sixteen young girls in neat uniforms consisting of black skirt and light blue waist, and with their hair for the first time done up on their heads received diplomas from the Grammar School. Miss Tenney writes with enthusiasm of the work of her seventy kindergarten tots in the central school. “They are quick, keen, with good memories, and good powers of reason¬ ing, which in the new education may enable them also to de¬ velop into useful and productive citizens." Two kindergartens in other parts of the city bring the Christian touch to still other homes. EVANGELISTIC AND SOCIAL WORK The many needs of the poor brought about the organ¬ ization of a Red Cross Chapter in Peking where missionary and other foreign women with Christian and non-Christian Chinese women have met in a common cause. Funds were provided by the American ajgd the Chinese Red Cross Socie¬ ties together with gifts for flood sufferers. Many hundreds of garments were sent to the refuge camps, and there was also sewing for the soldiers and some of the night shirts made in Peking are worn by American soldiers in France. THE UNION BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL Ffas had about forty pupils. In May a class of sixteen women graduated, the first to complete the three years' course. The entire class gave two months of their spring term to work in the refuge camps, two going together to a refuge and there comforting and instructing the women and children. 16 Many parts of the work in Peking have been materially aided as well as spiritually refreshed by a visit from Miss Mary Porter and her brother, Mr. James Porter. An enlarged kindergarten room freshly painted and calcimined is one evidence of their magic wand. The new $10,000 home for the Bible School is a larger monument to Mr. Porter’s gener¬ osity and is greatly appreciated. Shantung The Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior has an interest in two fields of the Shantung Province, Tehchow and Lintsing. TEHCHOW Many of the women of the Interior within the last three years have invested money and with it their heart's love in the new buildings in Tehchow. They were practically com¬ pleted early in 1917, dormitory and school building for the Grace Wyckoff Memorial School, Porter Hospital for women and children and a residence for our missionary women. School had been in session about a week, it being the first use of the new school buildings, the hospital was full of patients, the training school for nurses too, was well started on its year’s work, when the waters not only descended from the clouds but mounted up from the river and canal. Cellars were flooded and then living rooms on the first floor. Missionaries with all others in the compound who were able to work set about moving furniture, medicines and all supplies as also hospital patients, to the second and finally to the third story rooms. It required no small courage to improvise cooking facilities, care for patients, keep every one busy and yet calm, while all the time the waters could be heard flowing in through windows and doors and like some evil but irresistible spirit steadily climbing the stairs. At length the school girls were helped into boats waiting outside the second story win¬ dows and were sent to their homes. Later when it became evident that it would not be possible to use the buildings during the year, the girls were gathered at Lintsing and their school work carried on in connection with the girls’ school there. PORTER HOSPITAL In spite of floods and consequent confusion, the work of the hospital and Braining School for Nurses continued 17 almost without interruption. With water reaching to the ceiling of the first floor, with the moving of furniture and equipment and providing food for patients, those were strenu¬ ous days, but Chinese doctors and helpers as well as mis¬ sionaries stayed by and the hospital was at no time without patients. 'A branch dispensary was opened in the South Suburb as it was the only land out of water. Communication with the outside world was maintained by means of boats and later refugees were employed in building a road for which they hauled dirt on sleds on the ice. The Nurses’ Training School has, despite vicissitudes, maintained the high standards early established. The China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation joins the mis¬ sion in urging that a second trained nurse be sent out to be associated with Miss Sawyer in the onerous tasks of hospitals and training school. The nurses in training, men and women, are taking practi¬ cally the same courses as are given in training schools in America, but as they have much less foundation on which to build it seems necessary to extend the course over four years. Two of the young men students have within the year gone to France and one of the women students had to drop out for reasons of health. Two of the young men from the Shansi region went with missionary and Chinese doctors to fight the pneumonic plague. An epidemic of lawlessness had prevailed in the Shan¬ tung province, due to disturbed industrial and political con¬ ditions and Miss Sawyer writes of wards filled with gun-shot, fracture and burn cases, adding “We are daily fighting tetanus, septicemia, cancer and tuberculosis. Could you actually see the unrelieved suffering in this land you would long to make it possible to pour forth skilled care for these millions, even as so many hundreds of American nurses are pouring forth their offering of service to the stricken people of Europe today.” LINTSING The Lintsing school already inadequately housed was put to it to find sleeping, living and recitation rooms for the addi¬ tional twenty-five girls from Tehchow, but a long low build¬ ing intended originally for stables was requisitioned, a new door or two cut, partition walls replaced, a shed for the 18 washing and drying of clothes erected, and the work of the two schools went forward in orderly fashion. To be sure two men teachers of Chinese classics had to occupy the dining room in the missionary ladies’ residence at the same time, but one had his class write while the other class recited and all tried to be patient if meals could not be served quite promptly or the air of the room could not be kept pure and fresh. At Christmas time the girls of both schools gave an entertainment at the church for the women and children of the com¬ munity. It was a play entitled “No Room in the Inn”, and ^greatly pleased the audience. Many of the songs taught the girls by Miss Grace Wyckoff are handed down from gen¬ eration to generation of school girls and continue to speak to the people of her unfailing love for them. The girls carried on evangelistic work at the street phapel, they themselves perhaps gain •F : Callers in Lintsing mg as much through their efforts for others as those they tried to help. Shansi Province TAIKU The Precious Dew School for Girls at Taiku rejoices in having for the first time among its teaching force a graduate of the Union College of Peking. The work of this highly trained and cultured Chinese woman among them has been 19 both a mental and spiritual stimulus to the school girls. Miss Lin’s influence has also reached out to the women of the city, the patients in the hospital and the students of the Boys’ Academy, before all of whom she has at different times given lectures on hygiene and kindred topics. Miss Munger says: “It is a joy to watch new girls from non-Christian homes as they blossom out. At first they listen indifferently, presently they buy a song book and then a Bible. As they learn to read they join timidly in the singing, then shyly read a verse of scripture, and before long they too offer short prayers when the opportunity offers.” The school girls are encouraged to help themselves finan¬ cially through their needle work, and their skill with the needle has also enabled them to make gifts to flood sufferers in Chihli and—how gratefully we say it—also to send Jubilee gifts to their Mother Board in America. What loving self- denial is represented by the twenty-five dollars in gold Miss Heebner presented to the Board from her school girls on the occasion of the Thank-offering meeting at the rooms. FENCHOW The Lydia Lord Davis School at Fenchow regrets its inability to turn out teachers in sufficient numbers to supply the demand. Of the three girls completing the two years of Academy work given in this school, two were sent to Peking for further training. The third is teaching. Two other pupils of the school have been sent to Peking for a four years’ train¬ ing as nurses. On the Sundav before Christmas as the sun streamed in through the church windows in Fenchow, it illuminated a beau¬ tiful scene, truly a Christmas gift for the Savior, for seven of the older girls took the last step in church membership, three little ones the first step, and four the second. Miss McConnaughey since getting back from her fur¬ lough in America has made long and arduous country trips and rejoices in the opportunity to become acquainted and to choose possible future workers. She was heartened by receiv¬ ing women from four of the villages into the station class for definite Christian training. The Industrial School provides a point of contact with many women, and a new building to house both the station class and industrial school is an imme¬ diate need. 20 The Jubilee year of the W. B. M. I. is in a very real sense proving to be a Jubilee year for the Shansi work also. Thither have gone four of our Jubilee missionaries: Gladys Williams to Taiku, Dr. Clara Nutting, Cora May Walton and Vera Holmes to Fenchow. Both stations are also having their share of the Jubilee buildings, the beautiful and roomy mis¬ sionary residence in Taiku, and the Mabel Seelye Reese Me¬ morial Wing being already happy realities, while the money is all in hand for the Precious Dew School, the Alice Wil¬ liams Woman’s Work Building and the funds are almost collected for the Kindergarten Building. In Fenchow the Kate Ford Whitman Hospital and the Memorial Kindergarten are now being built, the missionary residence is undergoing extensive repairs and the Little Woman’s Work Building is also assured. INDIA MARATHI MISSION— Bomba }/—Blind School—Miss Anna L. Millard. City Schools—Miss E. Loleta Wood. Evangelistic—Miss Lillian L. Picken. Literary—Miss Emily R. Bissell. MADURA MISSION — Madura —Lucy Perry Noble Bible School—Miss Eva M. Swift. Aruvimkottai —Evangelistic—Miss Catherine S. Quickenden. Interest in India is more general today than ever before, interest in her involved politics, her danger from German intrigue and internal revolution, her longings for home rule and self-expression, her attempts at internal reform. A paper published in Bombay in one of its recent issues had an editorial entitled—“The Ferment in India,” one para¬ graph of which reads as follows: “The most striking symptom of India's present condition is neither political, social nor philosophical. It is religious. No one can study the Indian press of today, the utterances of leading Indian thinkers, and developments of a thousand and one kinds, without gaining the deep conviction that underneath all the political and social unrest throughout the land there is that deeper and more fundamental unrest which is brought about by a profound religious discontent. India’s ancient religious customs and beliefs are in the melting pot just as truly as is India’s con¬ stitution.” Nor is India’s secluded womanhood failing to share in this universal unrest. A well known writer who has recently traveled in the Orient says: “There is a general feeling in 21 India that the springs of the inspiration of the present Home Rule agitation are to be found among the women, even though the purdah hangs between them and the public eye. It is a well known fact that many of the leading women of India who have abandoned seclusion are under police sur¬ veillance and their free movement from province to province is prescribed.” The significance of this seething unrest as a background for missionary activities is too evident to need comment. How is our Woman’s Board “carrying on” in India? Our work centers chiefly in two great cities, Bombay on the western coast, Madura in the far south of the peninsula. BOMBAY Marathi Mission To all the other complications of life in Bombay is now added the fact that it is a military center. From this city are sent forth thousands of India’s choicest young men into Meso¬ potamia and Palestine and even France, and to Bombay come again ship-loads and train-loads of maimed and sick to be cared for in the hospitals of the city. Is it strange that our missionaries are torn between the opportunities for service in these hospitals and other military centers and the need of maintaining at their highest efficiency the schools and other institutions for which they are directly responsible? India never needed trained Christian leaders so much as she needs them today so the schools must not languish, but the special opportunities of the hour will never come again and we under¬ stand and sympathize with the ardent wish of each of our missionary women that she could multiply herself by at least two. Of our missionaries, Miss Millard’s chief work is in the Blind School, an institution which is each year equipping some of India’s handicapped boys and girls for happy, self- respecting, independent living. Aside from instruction in Braille reading and writing in Marathi and English, the boys are taught cane work and other manual occupations; the girls to do bead and other needle work. All learn to sing and many to play some musical instrument, as music seems to satisfy the restless spirit so natural in a young life just realizing the restrictions placed upon it by blindness and to prevent wan¬ dering into wrong paths, d he girls are all taught such house¬ work as they can do. They help in the care of the little 22 children in the school, among whom are often one or more blind babies. During these war years they have added to • their activities knitting for the soldiers. The new home the school has long needed is now in process of construction and will it is hoped be completed by the spring of 1919. The Blind School appeals strongly to the sympathy of non-Christians in Bombay and receives a con¬ siderable part of its support from them. No part of the run¬ ning expenses of the school is provided by appropriations from the Board. Miss Millard has recently been asked to serve on a commission, appointed by the Government, to con¬ sider the whole question of defective children. Miss Emily Bissell's work is now chiefly writing and translation, a work for which her rare knowledge of Marathi as well as her fine literary and musical sense fit her. Her third “Book Child,” a collection of stories, biographies and travel talks, has this summer been published by the India Tract and Book Society. With an Indian assistant she is also revising the Marathi hymn-book and painstakingly going over the tunes, as well as the words of each hymn. It is interesting that as Christianity has made progress in India, the native church has not been dependent upon translations of English hymns sung to English tunes, as was the case in early years, but has produced many composers of both hymns and tunes of its own. This native music makes a very strong appeal to non-Christians. Miss Bissell earnestly wishes that she could respond to all the calls to address companies of women who keep coming to her. She says: “It is appalling to have to refuse lovely, refined, educated high caste girls and women.” Because the W. B. M. I. keenly realizes the need of help¬ ing this class of India’s women, it has adopted Miss Lillian L. Picken, a young missionary already in Bombay who feels especially drawn to this form of service. Miss Picken went to India four years ago to have charge of a specially sup¬ ported English school for little boys, but because of her long¬ ing to do individual work among the young women students and other high caste women of Bombay, she has resigned that position. 1 he Board considers itself peculiarly fortunate in being able to number among its Jubilee missionaries one so well fitted for this service as is Miss Picken. Unfortunately the mission is so undermanned at present that it has not been 23 possible as yet for Miss Picken to be released from school work. We rejoice in the going to Bombay this fall of another of our Jubilee missionaries, Miss E. Loleta Wood of Sioux Falls, Iowa. Her work, as soon as she has acquired the Marathi language, will be the supervision of the elementary schools in Bombay. Of the work in the Marathi Mission outside the city of Bombay, the W. B. M. I. supports “Station Schools" in Rahuri, Vadala and Sholapur, makes a grant to the home for widows and orphans at Wai, and also to certain village schools, besides maintaining some fifteen Bible Women who in their beneficent ministry go in and out among the homes in cities and villages. The station boarding schools are largely for the children of Christians and sometimes Christian workers who are so far from all educational privileges that their chil¬ dren would be left entirely without training could they not be received into the station schools which are the connecting link, between the primary village schools and the higher boarding schools. Madura Mission The most outstanding feature of our work in the Madura Mission is the Lucy Perry Noble Bible School at Madura. This institution has been much before the constituency of the Board for four or five years because of its need of a new plant. The year 1918 has seen the completion of the industrial build¬ ing, the infirmary and a missionary residence, the last a bun¬ galow to be known as Indiana Hall. The Esther Barton Assembly Hall, a building to be used for neighborhood church services and for large gatherings of all kinds, is now in proc¬ ess of erection. The industrial school is self-supporting and is meeting one of the greatest needs of Madura’s women. Stu¬ dents of all classes also assist in cultivating the garden, in planting and nurturing trees and otherwise beautifying the grounds. The school year closed with a three-hour program, includ¬ ing an exercise on the “Origins of the South India United Church," which those present found all too short. Eleven women were graduated and are all employed in various parts of the Madura and other missions. These words quoted from one of Miss Swift’s letters are illuminating as showing what it costs to be a Christian in India. 24 25 Wingate Hall, Madura, India “One of the Hindu women we have long been hoping would become a Christian has openly taken her stand this week. There are the same difficult circumstances which make every such case a problem, opposition by her family, separa¬ tion necessitated, relatives following her up, the difficulty of adjustment to an entirely new environment and the necessity of working for a living when unaccustomed to work.” The “Woman’s Exchange,” the large building secured more than a year ago as a center for Christian work for women and girls of whatever social station, continues under Miss Swift’s efficient guidance to touch many lives. After writing of a large meeting of non-Christian women, Miss Swift says: “I am wishing already that our hall were larger. Five hun¬ dred crowd it and we have the crowd. It would convey a false impression to say they were there because athirst for the Gospel. They were there because we had a cinema—such a poor one! This coming to meetings is quite a new thing. There were Marathi women who never go out as a rule— purdahism—and Brahmin women terribly afraid that some one would touch them in the crush. As I stand at the door to receive or send them forth, I have a word from scores of them testifying to their belief in Christ. Last night a tall, dark woman swept in and brought up suddenly beside me in the darkness with the words ‘Since I was a girl my meditation has been upon Jesus Christ.’” ARUPPUKOTTAI Under Miss Quickenden’s supervision twenty Bible Women have been at work in the Aruppukottai field. Nine hundred and thirty-three women have been under the regular instruction of these twenty workers and Miss Quickenden estimates that not less than 42,618 others have through them had a less close touch with Christianity. One great difficulty' in the work of the village Bible Women is to find a suitable place for them to live. It is very easy for a man of influence, unfriendly to Christianity, to make it impossible for the Bible Woman to stay by simply seeing to it that no one rents her a room. In one village a man gave the newly arrived Bible Woman the names of ten women who he said might like to study. When she painstakingly hunted them up she found them all to be old, old women. He had been making fun of her. However, she found pupils in his caste; he watched her, became interested and finally himself became a regular attend- 26 ant at the church service and joined the night school where at last report he was eagerly learning to read. His two little daughters were also in the 'Hindu Girls’ Day School. The station boarding schools throughout this mission are greatly in need of new buildings as nearly all are housed in buildings erected fifty to eighty years ago. The conditions in Dindigul as described by Mrs. Elwood are typical of those existing in most of the other schools also. She says: “Every roof leaks like a sieve and the girls have been sleeping on wet floors. We could not have this so we undertook repairs. We soon found we were in for a much bigger job than we anticipated for beams and rafters and veranda pillars were simply eaten into pith by the white ants.” But the buildings are not only old but very inadequate at best. Mrs. Elwood continues: “We have twenty-four girls crowded at night into a room 27x8 feet. They lie so close together that one turn¬ ing over rolls against the next one. In a room 8x8 feet (no larger than a prison cell) we have two teachers and two girls. Now do you wonder that when an epidemic breaks out, it goes through the whole company of those who have not had the disease? We have just had such a time with mumps. We have no proper sick room and there is no possibility of segregation. A few years ago when an epidemic of cholera broke out six children died before the school could be closed and the children sent home. A few days ago a specialist appointed by the government to inspect health conditions in the Madras Presidency examined forty-eight of our boarding school children and found every one infected with hook-worm. I asked the doctor what we could do to help them and he replied that it would be a waste of money to give medicine until we provided more sanitary conditions.” It is impossible for us to refuse to meet the challenge of such a need as this and we rejoice that our Jubilee Building Fund has already provided a small part of the sum needed. To furnish suitable buildings for others of these schools will be a part of our post-Jubilee task. 27 AFRICA WEST CENTRAL AFRICA MISSION— Bailundo —Schools—Miss Emma C. Redick. Nursing - and Literary Work—Miss Helen H. Stover. Bondi —Girls' Training School—Mrs. M. M. Webster, Miss Leona V. Stukey. Ochileso —Schools—Miss Janette E. Miller. The continent of Africa is so vast that every degree of social order from the pagan in his kraal to leaders in building colonial empires is found among its races and peoples. Our own W. B. M. I. sphere of influence in the Dark Continent is the West Central Africa mission, in the “zone of pagan supremacy." In this section live some 40,000,000 natives. Each native village is an epitome of the African world. The 100 or more huts are constructed of palm sticks and leaves and the door is low. Often as many as one-third of the inhabitants are slaves. The women live on a plane of degradation far below the men. Polygamy is universal, im¬ morality a commonplace. The most brutal elements in the nature of the people come out in connection with their religion. An innumerable company of demons envelop them on every side, “demons in the stones of the brook, demons along the forest path, demons in the people one meets. The African never escapes from the terror of his supernatural world." Many foul customs are attached to funeral cere¬ monies. No educational opportunities whatever are open to the native except those provided by the mission. As soon as some desire to know Christianity is aroused in a community, an out-station school is started and an effort made to instruct the women. Teachers for these very primary schools are trained in the station schools which are theroretically at least secondary schools and receive only pupils who have had some primary work in out-stations. BAILUNDO Miss Redick reports four distinct departments in the school at Bailundo; the kindergarten, the primary school, the secondary grades, and the advanced class of fifteen chosen pupils preparing for the higher training in the Institute at Dondi, a total enrollment of 256. The war has caused such a scarcity of cloth- as to interfere with the teaching of sewing but the children all help in the school garden and learn to do clay modeling. A flag drill which thrilled the onlookers was a 28 feature of the closing exercises of the school year. The children are collecting money for a school organ and the dropping of their pennies for this object was another absorb¬ ingly interesting feature of the great day. 1 he new kinder¬ garten is the first building erected in Bailundo under govern¬ ment license and with sawn plates and rafters. A summer school is held for out-station workers. Miss vStover has charge of the Bible teaching and a native assistant gives lessons in the common branches. o As the reading public is constantly increasing there is more and more demand for the output of the mission press. Miss Stover varies her service as a nurse, dispensing medi¬ cines and caring for the sick, with translation and literary work. Born and bred among them, the people have a peculiar love for her, and her influence in causing them to abandon heathen superstitions and gruesome practices is truly marvelous. OCHIL.ESO Miss Miller with her 100 boys and a half hundred girls spends from eight to ten hours daily in the school room and tries to get time for the Principal’s executive duties and for her correspondence in the evening or the early morning hours. Once in three months she gathers in the out-station teachers for the discussion of problems and consideration of reports. DONDI The long-hoped for Training School for girls was opened in Dondi in 1916. The task set this youngest of all the W. B. M. I. schools is the training of leaders for West Central Africa’s womanhood. The students are picked girls from the various station schools. They must be taught not only the usual school subjects but how to become cleanly and intelli¬ gent housekeepers and how to do with efficiency and success the field work which for many years to come must still make a part of the life of African women. The afternoons of the girls in our Dondi Training School are therefore devoted to their garden and fields and the crops harvested go a long way toward paying the expenses of their living. Sewing and basketry—the “African woman’s fancy work” —are also taught. Mrs. Webster, the mother superior of the school, writes of the good comradeship existing among the girls and of their eagerness to learn that they may later serve. 29 We rejoice in the sailing a few weeks ago of Miss Leona V. Stukey of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to be Mrs. Web¬ ster’s co-worker in this significant school of West Africa. The constantly recurring theme in the letters and reports from West Africa is the under-staffed condition in which the mission is facing increased opportunity. Ochileso with its twenty-one out-stations, two boarding schools and a growing church has had just two missionaries and there would have been no woman at all had not our own Miss Miller remained till long past her furlough time. Four of the six stations of the mission are asking urgently for two new women each, the fifth asks for one and the sixth, the Training School at Dondi, asks for one teacher in addition to Miss Stukey who has recently sailed. What shall be the response of the W. B. M. I. in this its Jubilee year to the cry of our African sisters? An old woman recently said to one of the missionary women, “The Word of God has driven the spirits away." “Great Pan is dead,” exclaims the missionary, “this is a mat¬ ter for rejoicing but it is also a cause for anxiety. If the house remains empty, swept and garnished, other evil spirits will enter and take possession.” MEXICO HERMOSILLiO- —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Nellie O. Prescott, Miss Lora Frances Smith, Mrs. Jessie Bissell Crawford. The American Board and other mission boards in Mexico have this year worked out an agreement in accordance with which each shall have its own well defined field. As our work falls in the five states to the west and north, Chihuahua has been transferred to the Methodist Board South, and with it goes our W. B. M. I. school in Parral. HERMOSILLO The Instituto Corona in Hermosillo has this year for the first time been well housed. The rented house stands on a large lot in the midst of orange and shade trees, palms and flowering shrubs. Its rooms built around an open patio, with wide interior corridors has made a much more comfortable home for school and missionaries than was the dilapidated mis¬ sion house. During the year seventy-four pupils including kindergarten children were enrolled. The work covered the first six grades. The school has complied with the govern- 30 ment regulation forbidding the teaching of religion, but the teachers have met for a brief prayer service each day at noon and the story hour has furnished opportunity for the teaching of Bible stories and temperance lessons. Miss Smith's absence from her work for the present year because of the needs of her family is a great blow to the school, but Miss Prescott and Mr. and Mrs. Fritts are proving them¬ selves friends in need and the opening has been encouraging. Miss Jessie Bissell, detained from returning to her post because of a difficulty in regard to her passport, was married in September to Mr. Cedric C. Crawford of the United States Navy. She hopes soon to be able to return to Mexico. MICRONESIA JAtiUIT—Touring- and Schools—Miss Jessie R. Hoppin. Letters from our work in the far away islands of the Pacific have been very infrequent during the entire period of the war. The Japanese government, under whose control the islands now are, has shown the missionaries many kindnesses, enabling them to get needed supplies and allowing schools and other work to go forward uninterruptedly. Miss Hoppin's friends hope to welcome her home on fur¬ lough when the war is over. THE BALKAN STATES BULGARIA — Samokov —Girls’ Boarding- School—Miss Inez L. Abbott, Miss Edith L. Douglass. Evangelistic—Miss Agnes M. Baird. Sofia —Evangelistic—Miss Mary M. Haskell. SERBIA— Monmtir —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Delpha Davis. The Balkan Mission, though formerly all included within European Turkey, now embraces stations in Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Albania. It has, therefore, through the years of the world war been a house divided against itself and meet¬ ings or conferences of the mission as a whole have been impossible. Bulgaria That Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers was a distinct disappointment to those interested in mission work in that country. Interesting as would be an analysis of the causes for her doing so, we will here attempt only to call attention to some of the significant facts now 31 becoming increasingly evident since Bulgaria’s surrender to the Allies on September 30th. Bulgaria has never been under the control of Germany in any such way as Turkey, and has steadily resisted tremen¬ dous pressure on the part of Germany in order to preserve diplomatic relations with America. The people of Bulgaria have always cherished and today continue to cherish sentiments of gratitude and affection for America and they desire to pattern their political institutions after our models. Throughout the war the Bulgarian government has not only treated with the utmost fairness all Americans within its borders but has shown especial friendliness to American mis¬ sionaries and mission institutions. It was Bulgarian officials that made it possible for Dr. Mary Mills Patrick, president of the American College for Women in Constantinople, to secure permission from Austria to pass from Switzerland to Constantinople through that country. For two years past Bulgarian officials have made it pos¬ sible for the boarding schools in Samokov to secure food and fuel in ample quantities, whereas had they been unfriendly the schools must have closed from lack of these necessities. SAMOKOV Throughout the years of war our Boarding School for Girls has done much more than hold its own. The teaching staff today is larger and better trained, and the students are more numerous and from a higher class of homes than four years ago. Because of Miss Abbot’s enforced absence, Rev. Reuben H. Markham has acted as principal of the school, while Mrs. Markham accepted the responsible position of matron and both literally threw in their lot with that of the school, eating at the same table and accepting for themselves and children no comforts or luxuries which the girls could not share. What problems and sacrifices this service involved can be at least partially understood when one knows that last winter wood cost three times its normal price, meat and flour four times and butter and kerosene ten times their normal prices. Tuition and board were raised to what seemed pro¬ hibitive prices, but pupils came in such numbers that no room in the school could hold them at one time and the 140 day pupils have held their devotional exercises in the morning and the 100 boarders theirs in the evening. Why is it that in 3 ? • such awful times Bulgarian parents are with the greatest self- sacrifice thus keeping their girls in our schools? It is because they like the product of the school. Dotted all over the coun¬ try arc women and girls trained in Samokov, 1,500 and more of them, and they are making good. They are home-makers, teachers, social service workers and everywhere leaders. The significance of our work appears when a war corre¬ spondent of the Chicago Evening Post exclaims, “It is Bibles not bullets that whipped Bulgaria." We in turn must now be ready to provide largely increased appropriations for the school, and also the new plant so long needed. Miss Rada Pavlova Serbia MONASTIR Has suffered from the coming and going of armies, from bombs, and from shells rained down by overhanging Zeppelins. It has not been possible to keep our school in session, but throughout all the ter¬ rible months and years, Miss Mat¬ thews has had with her in the school home a little band of orphan chil¬ dren and a few families of her faithful Christian helpers. Latterly she has been able to render an especially valuable piece of work in acting as a medium of communica¬ tion between men in America, and their helpless families in Monastir. The men can send money and mes¬ sages to Miss Mathews and she in turn takes these freely to the stricken homes which must other¬ wise succumb to the horrors of starvation. Though herself sharing the hard¬ ships of a war-straightened city and though not entirely escaping rheumatism, and other ills attend¬ ant upon long living in basement shelters and insufficient food, Miss Matthews has again and again ex- 33 pressed her gratitude that she could be in Monastir and serve in this time of need. Miss Delpha Davis is still in Phoenix, Arizona, slowly recovering the young strength and health she sacrificed for the sake of the Monastir School during the strain of the Balkan Wars. Miss Rada Pavlova, the Bulgarian educator who has greatly endeared herself to the W. B. M. I. constituency the past two years, belongs also to this school. Greece In Salonica the W. B. M. I. has a truly “war child." With the beginning of the war ordinary missionary work was interrupted and feeling between different races was acute. School-less children were everywhere but a Bulgarian school, or a Greek school, or a Serbian school was out of the ques¬ tion ; possibly an American school might be welcomed. Ac¬ cordingly such a school was opened in December, 1914, with five pupils. Numbers increased somewhat but it was not till the landing of the British troops late in 1915 that the success of the school was assured. With the coming of the British soldiers, the people suddenly felt the need of the English language and more children appeared than could be cared for, parents urging the missionary to take "just one more." It was very difficult to secure suitable teachers, the political future of the city was in the balance from day to day, and the attitude of the local officials was problematic; the school was entirely without equipment, the desks for the children were rough benches put together by a versatile Bulgarian pastor from Nestle milk boxes begged of the British; books ordered from Boston failed to arrive; routine work was inter¬ fered with by Zeppelins sailing overhead and dropping bombs, and a destructive fire swept the city in the summer of 1917, but in spite of all the school grew and it now numbers 170 pupils. Mr. Brewster says there might easily be 1,000 if only there were room and teachers. The desire to learn English is still the great drawing card but incidentally the boys and girls are getting the best training in Christian character while through the entrance the school gives into all homes it is proving the best of missionary agencies. Already the call is urgently before us not only for a missionary who shall give 34 her entire time to the school and develop a boarding depart¬ ment for girls, but also for money to purchase land and erect permanent buildings. As we think of the growth of this little school placing its beneficent touch upon the lives of children and their parents in one war center throughout these four terrible years of bloodshed and destruction, we can but reverently say with George Matheson, “And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be." TURKEY WESTERN TURKEY MISSION— Constantinople —Gedik Pasha School— Mrs. Etta D. Marden, Miss Anna B. Jones. Smyrna —International Collegiate Institute—Miss Minnie B. Mills. Marsovan —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Charlotte Willard. Talas —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Stella N. Loughridge, Miss Susan W. Orvis. CENTRAL TURKEY MISSION — Aclana —Seminary—Miss Mary G. Webb, Miss Grace Towner. Evangelistic-—Miss Elizabeth S. Webb. Hadjin —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Olive M. Vaughan, Miss Edith Cold. Mar ash —Central Turkey Girls’ College—Miss Kate E. Ainslie, Miss Bessie M. Hardy. EASTERN TURKEY MISSION — Erzroom —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Ruth M. Bushnell, Miss Vina M. Sherman. Mardin —Girls’ Boarding School—Miss Agnes Fenenga. Kindergarten—Miss Johanna L. Graf. Since 1914 it has been impossible to hear freely from our workers in the Turkish Empire. For four long years they have lived in the midst of massacre, devastation of homes, unbelievable poverty and misery, fear and epidemic of cholera and typhus. During the last year, each succeeding month has made it more evident that the people of Turkey, Moslems as well as Christians, are weary of their German masters and as these words are written the world is rejoicing in the com¬ plete surrender of Turkey to the Allies. We cannot yet answer the question—"What next in Turkey?”—but through the veil imposed by war restrictions we already see the glim¬ merings of the dawn of a better day. In almost every center local officials have been friendly to Americans. A varied relief work has been done wherever missionaries are found and through this the influence of the missionary has been strengthened among all classes and races. 35 In Constantinople, which has been practically a German city since the beginning of the war, both the American col¬ leges have continued their work with large numbers of students. Of the sixteen W. B. M. I. missionaries who belong within the Turkish Empire, seven are today at their posts. The school in Gedik Pasha is crowded to its capacity with eager boys and girls, a large percent of whom are Turks, and Miss Jones and her associates find their hands very full with the training of these who are soon to be the leaders of a new Turkey. They nevertheless find time to visit the homes of the sorrowing round about them and to give out needle work to the women who only thus can keep themselves and their little ones alive. SMYRNA The Collegiate Institute in Smyrna is another of the schools whose work has gone on uninterruptedly and with ever widening influence in spite of many restrictions and diffi¬ culties. The pupils are largely Greeks though there are also Turks and Armenians and probably the daughters of some English and Italians interned in the country. The school girls as well as teachers all help in relief work and the daily routine of school life is doing more than we can estimate in maintaining the morale of the pupils and of the homes from which they come. The picture of the mission¬ aries coming together for a little surprise party for Miss Mills on her birthday indicates that life even in Turkey in war time is not all sad or devoid of occasional relaxation. MARSOVAN The storm that closed the girls’ school and seized the mission buildings in Marsovan seems to be overpast and what was apparently a very successful year of school work was completed by graduation exercises on May 30. An associate writes of Miss Willard : “She has been very brave and has carried through the year’s work as planned before Miss Gage left us, one year ago today.” Of the Commencement exer¬ cises he says: “Our small audience hall was. crowded to its utmost capacity. Some 300 specially invited guests witnessed our one Tweet girl graduate’ take her diploma. Local offi¬ cials honored us with their presence and delivered addresses.” The school family for the summer was to consist of twenty- 36 five teachers and girls. A part of their summer work was the making of garments for the children of the hospital orphanage. Miss Willard says: “We are thankful for health and for work.” ADAlVA The building of Adana Seminary was taken over by the government for hospital purposes in the early spring of 1918 and the school finished its year in the old hospital building. Apparently this too has now been taken for Miss Towner writes: “I will not be in regular school work this next year but I hope to have private pupils.” Miss Kyriakidis, for many years the faithful Greek teacher of the school, is with her and will also give lessons. Miss Towner asks for assur¬ ance that the Board will stand behind them financially as well as morally saying that Miss Kyriakidis’ former salary will now be but “a drop in the bucket” and that her own salary will cover but one-third of her living expenses. HADJIN Miss Vaughan, alone in Hadjin since the fall of 1915 so far as American companionship is concerned, writes of her calls upon the families of Turkish officials at the time of the feast of Ramazan, of beans and squash from their garden “which makes easier the provisioning of the school family,” of the school girls making syrup from mulberries and grinding their own wheat into flour and boolghoor, of the hope for a good grape crop, and of the two horses belonging to the school “threshing the barley from our little field” and bringing needed wool, hay and straw. MARASH Very little has come through from Marash but the im- J o pression received is that work has been but little interfered with. Apparently the school girls who made up the college family in 1914 have been allowed to remain in the safe shelter of the school through these four years and class work has never been wholly interrupted. The missionary circle now in Marash numbers nine adults and four children, the last a baby daughter born to Mr. and Mrs. Woodley last spring. Local officials are friendly and many of the usual missionary activities as well as much relief work have been kept up. Miss Hardy’s music is proving the fabled sesame to open many Moslem homes. 37 MARDIN On the border of Arabia seems to be sharing in the hope of the better day already dawning for the latter country and in the inspiration of the successes of the British forces in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Three women make up the mis¬ sionary circle in this far out-post, one of them our own Miss Graf from whom no direct word has come for many months. As we go through the list of these ambassadors of ours in Turkey we salute each one as truly a heroine. For four long years cut off from communication with the outside world, without home letters, unable to replenish their wardrobes or their larders from customary sources, dependent upon vague rumors or garbled Turkish reports for their knowledge of the great world happenings, they are still cheerful and strong, inspiring starving women and children about them to struggle toward a self-respecting independence and constantly gaining in influence with the Turks as well as with Christians. No pomp of war heralds their service but it is our mis¬ sionary women and their fellow-workers who are making leaders ready to “carry on” when the new day of liberty and hope breaks upon the land so long oppressed by Turkish misrule. Of our Turkey missionaries detained in this country on account of the war not one is idle. Mrs. Marden, the Misses Webb, Miss Fenenga, and Miss Cold have en¬ deared themselves and commended their work to the many who have listened to their speaking. Miss Sherman has regained her strength after a serious operation a year ago and is now a pastor’s assistant in Central Church,Topeka. Miss Lough- ridge after some months of study in the Univer¬ sities of Nebraska and Chicago is now teaching in Talladega College. Miss Bushnell is teaching in Pomona, California; Miss Harriet J. Fischer was happily married in June to Rev. Paul Nilson and both were about starting for South Africa to help mission work there when recent events have made a possible return to Turkey seem near at hand. Miss Ainslie after a period of study in the University of California accepted a position as teacher of English in a provincial High School for boys in Mitajiri, Japan. There are some 400 boys and over twenty 38 teachers in the school and she says: “My work is to make them proficient in understanding and speaking English!” Miss Orvis was a member of the party of missionaries who started in July, 1917, for southwestern Russia to do relief work. After many vicissitudes of travel she reached Alex- andropol where she found the people in appalling need. By almost superhuman effort she succeeded in obtaining daily and in sterilizing milk enough to keep alive 300 babies that must otherwise have perished. She built a soup kitchen from a pile of mud and bricks left by retreating Russian soldiers which enabled her to feed each day some 2,000 people, many of them women who came long distances to obtain work to keep them and their children from starving. As political con¬ ditions became worse and worse in the spring, Miss Orvis in common with other Americans was obliged to leave Russia but fortunately it is still possible to get money to Alex- andropol and the beneficent work she organized is being con¬ tinued by Armenians trained in the mission schools of Turkey. For the blessing of God which has rested so abundantly upon the work of the past fifty years we are humbly thankful. Forces have been put into action the results of which can be fully determined only in eternity. But we have not come to a resting place. At the beginning of our second half-century we are living in a world whose standards and valuations are undergoing unprecedented change. Four years of war have led people to attach a new and different meaning to such words as neigh¬ borliness, happiness, worth, life. We are beginning to see that America cannot be safe so long as China is corrupt; that it brings greater happiness to serve than to be served; that labor and suffering in a worth¬ while cause are a joy rather than a curse; that death itself is not the final evil; and that life is given us not for the pur¬ pose of getting and having but to invest in great and worthy causes. All this relates itself at once to missionary work. It means that the non-Christian peoples are more ready to re¬ ceive the message than ever before and that the women of the American churches are more ready to recognize and seize the opportunities to serve them. There is an immediate call for much larger sums of money than ever before. Because of war conditions the administra- 39 tion of established work is already costing far more than in ordinary times. There is the further call for reaching out to new work. Three such needs now definitely before us have been referred to in these pages. The new school in Kien Ning must have an additional missionary and $300 for its running expenses and cannot long wait for the larger amount with which a perma¬ nent home can be provided. The Salonica school should be put on a permanent basis and this means the purchase of land, the erection of a build¬ ing, and the sending of a missionary in addition to a larger amount for running expenses. Reconstruction work in Turkey and the Balkans is to be begun immediately. The Armenian-Syrian Relief Committee is now sending a commission into Turkey the clyief purpose being to study conditions and determine the most effective centers of work. With them will go most of the experienced missionaries now in this country. By next summer at least a part of our twenty-five new workers should be ready to start. Any of these lines of work offers an opportunity for an investment of both life and money simply irresistible to one who fairly sees it. The young women in college or just out are getting the vision and are ready to invest their lives. Could one whose gift must be of money rather than of life experience a greater joy than through making it possible for the needed teacher to go to Salonica and put upon a permanent basis the school that has grown up there during the war? Or those thousands of orphan children and hopeless women in Turkey; of Chris¬ tian girls and young women shut up in Moslem harems. To be able to send forth a strong young woman to bring to them a message of hope—could any investment be more worth while ? There are many indications that the years immediately following the war are to be momentous years in the great en¬ terprise of world missions. Other denominations are recog¬ nizing this and are marshalling their forces of men and money. The American Board is planning larger things. The W. B. M. I. too must “carry on.” May God grant to us, the women of today, a vision as wide and true, a love as compelling, a faith as adequate for the New Era just dawn¬ ing, as were the vision, the love and the faith of our mothers for the work they began fifty years ago! 40 : ; The Annual Report ® ® £q y 1918 ® ® May be obtained for postage upon application to MISS A. E. NOURSE 19 South La Salle Street CHICAGO Room 1315