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Show - 48 - 500 Miles t3 Peking. The opening days were not easy ones on account of the heavy rains which had made so many of the roads impassable. The first of August found us back from our val'ey retreat busy getting the needed repairs done, and in fitting up a room for the Kindergarten. And the latter part of the month found us traveling over almost impassably roads, in an effort to escort two of our Fenchow and one of our Tai Ku girls to Peking to go on with the advanced work. Also to bring in the little Kindergarten assistant from Peking. If we needed convincing that it was an unwise educational policy that makes it necessary for our girls who are to have a High School education, to take a trip more than equal ID expense-as the wage scale goes to a trip from Ohio to California we ceitainly are convinced of the folly of it now. For what it costs to send a girl to Peking we could establish the first two years of the High School work here in our own school, and give ten girls the same chance. On the very face of it, the present investment is not bringing back returns for the capital investment. Our enrollment this year in the school proper has numbered over fifty. We have taken in all that we had equipment for, and more besides, just because we could not turn girls away in our present crisis. When one realizes that in our boys schools alone wa have enrolled over 800 boys, and in all departments of our girls' work we have only about one hundred and twenty, we know that unless we make som • stupendous sacrifice for our girls, we can't in the future have the Christian homes that are the rock foundations for the Christian Church. But this is only a fraction of the opportunity and need, for all of those interested in our work know something of the Government offer in connect on with the middle s.hool for boys. It is no visionary fact to state that just such a chance will face us in the girls school. Are we taking the steps which will make it possible for us to enter into such an opportunity? Lydia Lord Davis School for Girls. Our teachers have proved that they were not mere wage earners. They have gladly taken on besides their own regular schedules, several classes in the school for women. Yet it is a policy which we have no right to continue for Mrs. Wang has again shown tubercular tendencies, due without doubt to the overtaxing of her physical strength Mr. T'ien has given, as always, that untiring effort and interest to his work that leaves its lasting imprint upon all who are associated with him He is, 1 believe, in the best sense of the term "a Christian gentleman," and the reputation which our school now holds is in a large measure due to him. Mrs. He, with her splendid executive ability, has had the responsibility of the school dormitories. The health of the school has b^cn a matter of great thankfulness. We are convinced that we must have our girls live under the most healthful conditions, for it is a poor investment that trains girls for ten years and then produces consumptives who can in no way make returns for the years of labor either to their homes or the school. We have to record this year with grateful thanks the scholarships from Mrs. Davis' " Ping An Hui " society, and also from friends in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We hope that these scholarships will be permanent investments. By |