USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Extracts from the minutes of the yearly meeting of Friends held in Philadelphia, 1922 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
And now the temporary need is passing, and we must face the possibility that our Yearly Meeting may easily settle back within itself, while the continuous needs of our fellow- men the world over call to deaf ears.
If then a vital type of Christianity is essentially world- wide in its concern, we believe that there should be a Board or Committee as an intrinsic part of the Yearly Meeting which should consolidate the foreign work not covered by the American Friends' Service Committee. This is the first conclusion which we deduce from our study of the situation.
Secondly, we believe that the present organization of the missionary interests of the Yearly Meeting is inadequate and duplicating. There are three organizations attempting to meet the need; the Foreign Missionary Association of Friends of Philadelphia; the Young Friends' Committee through its Mission Committee, and the Yearly Meeting Committee here reporting. Each of them appears to be meeting some part of the need not met by the other two but with duplication of machinery and diffusion of attack. In the faith that a comprehensive Mission Board might be evolved to take over the functions of parallel organizations,
45
your Committee called together representatives of the three, and this representative group has been trying the past few months to discover a plan which might in a general way guide the Yearly Meeting in a possible merger. Its sugges- tions as here given are endorsed by the three co-operating organizations and are presented at their request.
SUGGESTION FOR REORGANIZATION:
I .- It appears that the work of the Yearly Meeting's Com- mittee on Christian Labor in Foreign Lands and of the Foreign Missionary Association are complimentary and that the special task of each is possibly crippled by its divorce from the other. The Foreign Missionary Association con- centrates on the support of one field committed to it by the polity of missions. Its touch with our membership at home is principally confined to efforts for the support of the Japanese work.
The Yearly Meeting Committee concentrates on our own Yearly Meeting membership in the effort, very inadequately realized, to develop a world concern for the Kingdom of God. It has no practical administrative touch with any field whatever.
We are inclined to feel that these separated functions properly belong to one organization. Of the two present organizations your Yearly Meeting's Committee has no hesi- tation in saying that the Foreign Missionary Association is the permanent and basic one, and feels that its work should be taken over and incorporated under a Yearly Meeting's Board of Foreign Missions. If such a Board is created it should be chosen in a way which will not in the least imperil the continuity and development of the work of the present Association. While we would not here attempt the details of such a reorganization, we would draw attention to three duties that should be covered by the new Board.
(a.) The present administrative work of the Foreign Missionary Association in Japan and in addition a conscious relationship to all foreign countries where our members are called, when their concern is concurred in by their Monthly Meetings or by this Board.
46
(b.) The work of the present Yearly Meeting's Com- mittee.
(c.) The closest possible co-operation with the Young Friends' Committee as the group that will for the most part give the life material for our work abroad, and the one therefore that can make the most effective appeal for the giving of life and substance from our Yearly Meeting.
II. Without attempting details, a word may be devoted to the financial responsibility which the proposed Board might involve. We suggest that it be financed much as our Peace Committee is financed, involving the annual budget of the Yearly Meeting either not at all or only in a small annual appropriation. The remainder could then be raised as funds are now collected by the Foreign Missionary Asso- ciation for Japan. We suggest in addition that the Board become the distributing agency for other Foreign work of our own membership not at present coming under the American Friends' Service Committee. This would obviate the separate appeals of parallel committees, allow Friends to give to the fields or workers of their choice, through their own Board, and give to our workers in other Fields a definite connection with their Yearly Meeting.
In this report we have tried to indicate a line of advance for the Yearly Meeting as soon as it feels impelled by an inner necessity to give larger expression to a world concern. Until it is gripped by the need, it would be better to continue the present arrangement, inadequate as we feel it to be. Mere reorganization without power will accomplish nothing at all, and our interest is not in machinery but in life. The thing that does supremely concern us is that as a Yearly Meeting, we may come to think of ourselves as an instru- ment for the Kingdom of God, ready to function wherever He calls us one by one without reservation of race or place; ready to speak our love to all peoples through our friends
47
who go out under the compulsion of His Spirit; ready to ยท lose life as individuals and as a group if need be, for the sake of the great discipleship to our Master, Jesus Christ, whose field is the world.
On behalf and by direction of the Committee,
WM. B. HARVEY, Clerk.
PHILADELPHIA, Third Month 2, 1922.
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CHRISTIAN LABOR IN FOREIGN LANDS
If the Yearly Meeting feels that it can respond with approval to the proposals contained in our Report, we would suggest as a practical course of action, that the Committee on Christian Labor in Foreign Lands be released, and that a nominating committee be appointed to propose to a later session this year Friends to form the nucleus of a Board of Foreign Missions.
We recommend that this Board or Committee be charged with the duties heretofore assigned to the Committee on Christian Labor in Foreign Lands, and that it be authorized to take action, as way may open, to consolidate, reorganize and administer the Foreign Missionary interests and work of the members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and, to this end, to add to its number such other members of Philadel- phia Yearly Meeting as may be thought desirable in order to secure an efficient committee, representative of the varied missionary interests of our members.
FOREIGN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS OF PHILADELPHIA.
CHELTENHAM, PENNA., Second Month 14, 1922.
At a regular monthly meeting of the Executive Board of the Foreign Missionary Association of Friends of Philadel- phia, held First Month 13th, 1922, the third annual Report
48
to the Yearly Meeting of the Committee on Christian Labor in Foreign Lands, with supplement, was read and approved by the Board. It was felt to be a most admirable report. Taken from the Minutes, WALTER W. HAVILAND, President. SARA M. LONGSTRETH,
Recording Secretary.
49
REPORT
OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION TO THE YEARLY MEETING.
Since our last report to the Yearly Meeting, many inter- esting and significant things have been taking place in our eight schools. The school year may be characterized as a year of spiritual power: our ideals have been enlarged, our. courage renewed, our purposes strengthened as together we have worked at our common problem. Our sense of obliga- tion to our children is more than ever awake, as the world situation, with its vast opportunities and demands, presses upon us. In this sense of obligation we would have you share. These are your eight schools, with their 356 chil- dren 80% of whom are Non-Friends, and whom you have a unique opportunity to reach in their formative years, by your Christian message. It is your privilege with us so to extend the ideals for which we stand, through the schools, that the door to an abundant life may be opened for our children, and that working through our schools more and more the things of the spirit may come to be the common and abiding possessions of mankind.
Our aim in educating the children in our schools may be put, broadly speaking, in the words of a recent writer, "to bring the child out and into something. Into the real world, out of half-worlds and barren-regions, into the best and the eternal." Believing that whatever we wish to get into the life of a nation, we must first get into our schools, with the world needs before us, the work of our little schools becomes both a challenge and an opportunity. The most important years of a child's life are in our hands in these schools. If we can fill these early years with right activities, full of purpose, if we can provide for them experiences of great richness, where action is dynamic; if we can give them freedom to work out creative impulses, believing that we learn by doing and, by cultivating right attitudes towards
50
work start them on the road to good citizenship; if we can give them a chance to develop initiative, to acquire ability for independent thinking, develop leadership, we believe in all these opportunities we are starting them on the right way of living. In the words of our late Superintendent: "We aim to make self-control a more potent factor than teacher- control, and believe it to be of permanent value, and so we give much freedom which the child learns to respect, to guard zealously by using wisely. Without exception, the schools in which there is granted the greatest freedom for choice, for judgment, there is the finest self-control, the most courteous consideration of others."
As again and again we find in our experience that the thing lacking to make our monthly meetings function to their full power is a sense of responsibility in our member- ship, we are, in our little schools, trying to encourage our children in developing this fundamental lack, by sharing the every-day responsibilities of school life with them. They are learning to enjoy and delight in true, honest work, they are finding that real and satisfying pleasures come from work in which hand and soul share alike, and thus they learn through their own experience the worthy use of leisure time. If we once establish this eager attitude towards creative work in our children, we shall have little occasion to be concerned over any interest in popular amusements.
If we conceive of Peace as an energy, as something crea- tive, as "a deliberate and planned co-operation of peoples in the service of life," shall we not feel that children must begin to make this energy function in their lives at a very early age? With this conception of Peace, we have been endeavoring to establish in our schools certain attitudes of mind and spirit, such as consideration for the rights of others, appreciation of both near-at-hand and distant peoples, the cultivation of kindness, and all that makes for friend- liness of thought. We give them a study of other lands and peoples, contact with returned missionaries, lectures from those who have been in service in foreign fields, bringing home the stories of German and French children, of Jap-
51
anese and Chinese and Dutch boys and girls, and starving little Russians. Letters are exchanged with some of these; sympathies are enlarged, children begin to think in terms of internationalism, and voluntarily the lesson of brother- hood and world suffering is translated into joyous self- sacrificing service. During the recent Conference at Wash- ington, many of our children followed the Proceedings with interest and concern. Letters were dispatched to President Harding and the Secretary of State, signed by "loyal citi- zens" and stating that their motto was "Blessed Are the Peace Makers." Truly out of the mouths of babes in our little schools may we not feel that praise has been perfected?
We might tell of many more activities and plans which are being worked out in a quiet way in these schools. If you have read the reports of our Superintendent that have appeared in the issues of The Friend for the past two years, you are not unmindful of our aims and some of our actual accomplishments. For any who may feel that they have not kept pace in their thought with the newer education in our schools, it may be well to say that the solid vigorous work is by no means neglected. As witness to this fact careful inquiry shows that our children not only pass easily into higher schools, whether public or private, but that in those schools almost without exception they make records of scholarship which bring credit to the foundation laid in the Yearly Meeting Schools.
As teachers and Committee Friends we have this past year had our ideas enlarged and stimulated by group experiences, when we have held conferences and meetings with noted educators outside of our state who have come to tell us of the work of their progressive schools, and to encourage us in the work we are doing. Again and again, we hear from such educators that the opportunity of the Friends School is unique. With a body of earnest seekers of the truth behind us in our schools, it is ours to carry the torch forward. And the light that never was on sea or land may come to others through our continued faithfulness and effort.
52
Five years ago, our Committee on Education was the recipient of a gift of $10,000, by an unknown donor, with the request that the principal and interest both be spent in raising the standard of our schools. Most jealously have the Custodians of this Gift watched over it, that not a penny should go where it would not be used to the best advantage. We ask you today to look at some of the results. Com- munities have been helped in their efforts to increase the efficiency of their schools, as in enlarging and dignifying the old Haddonfield School House, where the sixth generation of one family is now being educated, to help convert the one-room dingy building at Media into a worthy school- house, to aid the small community of Friends at Downing- town in starting a school by contributing towards the cost of the finest and most modern school building in our Yearly Meeting, to work with the Atlantic City School to meet a few of its crying needs, to give Lansdowne a lift over some difficult places-to help it become the splendid school that it is, to help the joint school at London Grove have a larger life, and to- assist in smaller degree Frankford and Fallsington.
In addition to this help we have used this gift money to provide for all the schools, special teachers in drawing and physical culture, to grant bonuses to our teachers during the early war period when salaries were far from commensurate with increased cost of living, and to help furnish books and some special equipment for our schools. Each grant to a community has been most carefully considered.
This wonderful, magical Fund, which has wrought such changes in our schools, and which has been a source of encouragement to all who have labored for their advance- ment will soon be exhausted. But our vision for the further enlargement and betterment of our schools is a growing vision. We plead that you may see our opportunities as little schools, that the vision may be yours, of the possibili- ties that lie at our very door. The realization of our con- cern for a better, saner world, of our longings for a new social order, of our work for international peace and brotherhood, of our urgent need for leaders in our Society,
53
for missionaries, for teachers and preachers, for outreaching service of every kind as limitless as love itself, has its most natural beginning, we truly believe, within the walls of our little schools. And we would suggest that if we would make our Yearly Meeting School at Westtown worthy of the best tradition of Friends, we must begin the work in our elementary schools, with the children and the com- munities in which they live.
At the beginning of the school year, our Committee was greatly saddened by the news that our Superintendent, Gertrude R. Sherer, was ill with a fatal disease and would be unable to return to us. So vital was her interest and so devoted her love for our schools, that at our request she gladly undertook to continue her work from her home in Massachusetts, and has kept closely in touch with each school through a voluminous correspondence with children, teachers and Committee Friends. We believe it is impos- sible to estimate the far-reaching effects of her work for this year. Our schools and teachers, stimulated by her heroic example of unselfish living, are bound together as with a golden chain of love. Little children who have confided in her all their joys, teachers who have felt "her warm hand over the hard places," Committee Friends who have found in her an inspiring leader, all mourn her departure. But the work of Gertrude Roberts Sherer for our schools will go on. Her spirit will be with us as we work, and still hearten our every effort for the higher, larger life of the boys and girls who will soon be the men and women of this Yearly Meeting. We believe that it is not too much to say that she has in her large work in our schools helped little children to find God.
For the Committee.
CLEMENT B. WEBSTER.
54
FINANCIAL STATEMENT OF YEARLY MEETING'S COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Receipts and Payments for Fiscal Year 1921-22 as Estimated Third Month 17, 1922.
GENERAL FUND RECEIPTS
Balance Ninth Month 1, 1921. Increased by
$1,570.00 Temporarily Advanced to Gift Fund
$2,201.00
Yearly Meeting Appropriation. 5,000.00
Interest on Deposits and Sums Advanced to Gift Fund
88.00
$7,289.00
PAYMENTS
Appropriations to Schools.
$900.00
Salary of Superintendent
1,800.00
Salary of Secretary to Superintendent. 450.00
Traveling Expenses of Superintendent.
50.00
Postage and Miscellaneous Office Expenses of
Superintendent 125.00
Special Teachers' Salaries
1,200.00
Traveling Expenses of Special Teachers 200.00
Carfare of Teachers Attending Teachers' Meet- ings
150.00
Subscription to Periodicals.
60.00
Sundry Expenses of Committee Officers.
13.00
Estimated Balance Eighth Month 31, 1922, In-
creased by Sums Which May Have Been
Advanced Temporarily to Gift Fund.
2,341.00
$7,289.00
GIFT FUND
RECEIPTS
Interest on Investments $180.00
Interest on Deposits.
5.00
$185.00
55
PAYMENTS
Appropriations to Schools. $50.00
Special Teachers' Salaries.
745.00
Superintendent's Participation in Retirement
Fund 65.00
Interest on Sums Temporarily Advanced by General Fund
43.00
$903.00
The excess of payments over receipts amounting to $718.00 will be balanced by a corresponding increase in the cash deficit, the estimated amount of which at the end of the fiscal year will be $2,204.00, covered by securities valued at $3,500.00.
56
REPORT
OF COMMITTEE IN CHARGE OF TUNESASSA INDIAN SCHOOL. THIRD MONTH, 1922.
To the Yearly Meeting:
Another year has passed and our Heavenly Father has again blessed our efforts to improve the condition of the New York Indians. An earnest and conscientious corps of workers, together with a full enrollment of fifty-one scholars, has contributed to make the past year one of satisfactory progress.
Your committee has before it the vision of a still better school, modern in its equipment and methods, but in view of the limited finances it is the aim to develop the equip- ment at hand to its greatest possibilities, confining efforts to a limited curriculum rather than to a wider scope insuf- ficiently covered. The attempt to include a year of Junior High School, instituted a year ago last fall, has been only partially successful, but the usual industrial education of both boys and girls has been continued, except the Manual Training classes for boys which were dropped a few years ago for lack of a competent instructor. A new caretaker for the boys, who entered upon his duties a few weeks ago, gives promise of supplying this need.
That the effort to instil a desire for knowledge has born some fruit is shown by the fact that several scholars have taken or are taking further education, mostly along special lines. Among these are a High School graduate of Cleve- land, Ohio, a graduate nurse, four who have taken agricul- tural courses in Cornell University, two at Haskell Insti- tute, Kansas, and a member of last year's graduating class who is studying at Hampton Institute, the latter made pos- sible through the generosity of an interested Friend. In addition to these a graduate, Dema Crouse, is at present girls' caretaker.
57
The physical equipment has had some additions during the year. An electric sweeper was secured with gift money and this together with the electric washers and laundry mangle previously in use, helps to lighten the work of caring for the large family. New bath tubs for the girls have been installed, a nominal price for these being secured through the influence of a kind Friend. Paint for the outside of the main building, cottage and tenant house, also generously donated, was a most acceptable gift, calling forth the expres- sion from a recent visitor, "The school building is the most attractive I have ever seen it, with its new coat of paint." A small porch erected at the front door of the tenant house adds greatly to the appearance and comfort of that building.
Dairying still continues to be the major operation on the farm and during the past year the milk which was not needed for home use has been sold to a cheese factory. Crops were generally good but prices have been exceedingly low for some time and as a result the farm accounts show a slight deficit for the year. The opening of the new Allegheny State Park as a pleasure resort, five miles up Quaker Run, offers a possible additional source of revenue in the future by furnishing a summer market for vegetables. Leroy Pierce, a graduate of the school, has care of the farm under the direction of the Superintendent. He holds this position with some pecuniary sacrifice to himself. The Tunesassa Old Scholars' Association has pledged $500 for agricultural education, and $341 of this sum is in the hands of its treasurer. No provision as yet has been made for its use.
Christian work on the Reservation has been somewhat hampered by the Superintendent's increased duties of admin- istration and we keenly feel the need of more helpers to relieve Henry B. Leeds for this service. Cases of distress have in a measure been relieved, funerals have been attended and school teams have been furnished on these and on other occasions. Quoting a letter from Henry B. Leeds, he says, "I am concerned that our Indian folk greatly need to know more of Jesus Christ, the sweetening, strengthening, saving principle of the world. I am desirous of placing a
58
Bible in every home on the Allegheny Reservation. Every household should be instructed regularly, if possible, especially the newly established ones, in the truth of the Gospel. The Bible Association of Friends has kindly sent a box of Bibles which will assist nicely in the proposed dis- tribution."
Under a religious concern of Alfred Lowry, a meeting for worship was held in the Long House, which is the Council House of the Old Party Indians. This is an illustration of the opening which Friends have among the Old Party Indians that they would be willing to make this opportunity for a meeting for worship.
The belief that many Friends of the Yearly Meeting are vitally interested in Tunesassa encourages the committee to press forward, even under difficulties in carrying on our Mission. In a recent report to the committee the Superin- tendent aptly expresses the aims of the school, saying, "I love to emphasize that this worthwhile mission stands signally for practical Christianity. That it wishes its boys and girls to have the best in academic and industrial train- ing, ample accommodation, and acceptable diet. Friends of the school have been liberal in their contributions to its maintenance and improvement. This attitude must continue and materially increase if Tunesassa keeps abreast of what is reasonably required."
We believe most earnestly in our mission among these people as one which our Master has abundantly blessed both as to servant and recipient of his bounty. Our great desire is to convey to them in a convincing way the old, old story of a Savior's love, together with as large a share as possible of the benefits of Christian civilization. We fully believe that the school is the most efficient tool at hand with which to accomplish our purpose. In it the children come in direct contact in daily life with devoted earnest Christians by whom they are unconsciously influenced. In this the children of the Old Party Indians share alike with the Christians, learning passages from Holy Writ as well as hymns picked up in leisure hours which will be with them while memory lasts. One boy of Old Party parentage, now
59
at Haskell, recently wrote a friend that at this school, Tune- sassa, his Christian life began. A number of others have borne similar testimony. The work of the school for these children obtains for Friends an entrance and a hearing in homes where this is denied missionaries of other denom- inations. The need of the school from the standpoint of the Indians themselves is shown in the following resolu- tion of the New York Indian Welfare Society adopted at their recent annual Meeting, "We desire to register our appreciation for a long and helpful service of the Friends' Indian School at Tunesassa, and we further state that we believe that these good people at their school have exercised a transforming influence over the lives of hundreds of our young people. For these and other reasons we petition the Friends to continue their splendid work for our boys and girls if it is possible for them to do so without detracting from the support of other duties they deem more important."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.