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Show - 97 - There are five primary schools for girls in connection with GIRLS' our station, having in all an enrollment of about one hundred. SCHOOLS. The Emily Ament Memorial School has passed through tribulations because of necessary changes in teachers and management, but an excellent Christian woman now mothers the girls in the boarding department and looks after the general upkeep of the establishment. Forty pupils keep the young teacher busy, even with the assistance of the matron's sister, 'who comes in to help part of the day. Perhaps the greatest event at the Ch'i Hua Men school this year was the wedding of the teacher, who was courted and married in quite foreign style. This may be open to criticism, but it is becoming more and more popular among our educated young men and women. All of her pupils followed the bridal carriage to the church in the city where the ceremony was performed, and from which she went out to her own little home and not to her mother-in-law. Their Christmas celebration was scarcely second to this in interest, for the crowds packed the buildings and the yard to hear the children's song and the telling of the old, old story so new to them. The dolls and other little gifts from the home churches made radiant faces, and more vivid the thought of the Greatest Gift that is for all men. The Boarding school in the historical old city of Cho Chou has fifteen pupils, and is making a growing impression on that conservative place. Some of the children come from the city and some from near by villages. Prejudices of centuries are being overcome, and one deacon especially rejoices that his little girl's mother has yielded, and the child is learning to read. Have you ever watched the rough board under the carpenter's BRIDGMAN hand slowly change until it becomes a smooth shining article ACADEMY FOR of value; or have you seen the ground wheat taken from the GIRLS. stone and winnowed of all its chaff until it becomes the pure white flour? Just so you may watch the girls who enter this portal from many missions and from many provinces develop into young women of character and ability. They are girls full of life and zeal for both work and play. The slowly moving, proper school girl of yore is being infused with an enthusiasm for outdoor games which gives her a new physical vigor and grace. On the same basket-ball field where three years ago every student who played did so because it was compulsory, this year when the first snow fell pupils hastened out after school was dismissed to clear the ground that they might have their usual game. Their zeal for work is shown in their high grade of scholarship, and rarely is it necessary to reprove a girl for neglecting her studies. Their activity in Christian work is also a cause for rejoicing In connection with the Y.W.C.A. there are several groups for voluntary Bible study, meeting each week, and every Sunday over thirty go out to teach in six different centers, touching the lives of between four and five hundred children and women. At the Old Ladies' Home the deaf, half-blind inmates look forward to these afternoon visits as children to some sweet-meat. In the chapels they are tactful and patient with the ignorant noisy street children, teaching them songs and verses |
