An Or ienta l Nigh t School in Amer ica By SARAH VAN WAGENER
T HE First Presbyterian Church o f Seat tle, under the guidance o f its conse crated' pastor, Dir. M. A. Matthews, is known throughout our country for the wide scope o f its work and for the amount of work which it is doing along missionary lines and Bible study. There are at the present time about fifty classes for the study o f the Bible. One o f the foremost o f the missionary activities' is the work among the Orientals, including the night school for Chinese and Japanese" boys, which is held six nights a week in the Mission rooms o f the church. This work which had a small beginning has gone steadily on for th e past thirteen years, and the report o f the good work done by this mission has spread not only throughout the length and breadth o f our own land but also across the seas to the Orient. Boys embarking from China or Japan for America are told o f the night school by their friends on the other side o f the water and urged to attend, so that when the boys land in Seattle, they immedi ately come to the church and feel that they are among friends even though they may not be able to speak the English language. A fter a missionary sermon preached by Dr. Matthews, a few o f the consecrated women o f the church became impressed with the fact that
tume. The early teaching was very prim itive, consisting in the main o f hearing them read, going over and over the same words, teaching the names o f familiar 'objects; in counting, and later on in conversation. The second half o f the year showed an average attendance o f thirty; ten o f the boys had embraced the Christian religion, had been baptized and joined the church. O f the fir§t three young Christians in the Mission, one is now a merchant in Tacoma, Wing Lew. He has established a Christian home and is prospering. One o f the three, Lee York, is a merchant in Seattle; but-is now in Alaska for the summer. Recently he returned from a four years’ stay in China, where three years ago he estab lished two schools—one for women and the other for boys—after the manner o f the one in which he learned the English lan guage and the Christian religion. During these three years.he has borne all the expense o f the two schools, in which at present twenty women and forty boys are enrolled. The third, Loc Lok, died after having spent five years in the school. He, having become a Christian, was accorded a funeral which conformed with the customs o f his adopted religion, and was mourned not only by his associates but by the Chi nese all over the city. Contrary to Chinese custom, instead o f being afraid to go near a dead body, they all tried to do him honor and spared no expense nor efforts to accomplish this end. During the second year a “conversation class” was organized and in this class all talking or reciting in Chinese was forbid den—all speaking must be in the English language. In fact the violator o f the law, or the boy with the short memory, was fined a penny for each offense. One o f the early difficulties was in per suading the Japanese to attend the school.
“I f you can not cross the ocean and the heathen lands explore, You will find the heathen nearer— You will find them at your door.”
So in June, 1903, this idea assumed tan gible form and the night school was started. Those o f the ladies who could spare the time gratuitously devoted one or two even ings per week to the .work. For the first half year there was an attendance o f twenty Chinese boys and they belonged to the “old school” with queue and native Chinese cos
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