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Show Tientsin WOMAN'S WORK 21 ®tpntaiu Station Report of Woman's Work. SCHOOL DIFFICULTIES Miss D a v i s r e t u r n ed AND THE WAY OUT from P t l t a l h o to °Pen school under such unusual conditions as a compound largely under water, a fallen wall on the west side of the school court, and an absence through a delayed letter of the head teacher. School finally began with a larger number of pupils than ever before. Many girls have been turned away, not for lack of room or of equipment, but lack of money for running expenses. In the fall the rate of exchange told heavily upon this station as upon all others. When the expenditure is always far in advance of the appropriation, a difference of a hundred and fifty dollars because of exchange is ruinous. Add to this the fact that twenty eight girls must be fed on the allowance never enough for eighteen and that every article of food costs more than ever before, and you have the condition which faced us. About the middle of November it seemed there was no resource but to close the school. 'This situation was talked over with absolute frankness with the Chinese. At first they did not grasp it. They had been familiar for years with the fact that at the end of the year the foreigners had always mentioned a lack of funds. Yet, somehow the emergency had been met and that without their aid. Perhaps they grew to be doubtful it was an emergency. This time they learned the exact amount of the appropriation, the exact expense item by item, and the exact width of the yawning gap between the two. Still it was not until three of the little girls were actually sent away as a preliminary to the general breaking up, and the date of the return of the rest to their homes had been heralded by letters to the parents, that they realised the imminence of the catastrophe. Then a sense of sorrow was followed by a determination to do something. In fear but in faith, a faith that Was born of sleepless nights of prayer, they started out without a word to the foreigners. Two teachers and a Bible woman composed the baud, while the school and a second Bible woman stayed at home with injunctions to pray the day through. WTe cannot deny their theory: rather than "To whom much is |
