LITERARY WORK
In the literary field Dr. House was receptive rather than creative. He was a lover of books but not of writing:
“How irksome and difficult the labour of composition has been to me,” he says, “I’d rather be a ditch digger and shovel mud. The getting of a certain amount of writing done by a given time is out of the question in my case.”
He was appointed the first “librarian” of the Mission back in the early days when the library consisted of two shelves of books and some unbound magazines, besides “some Malay, Tamul, Bengali, Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese books for a long time handed down in the mission.” His reluctance at the pen partly accounts for the sparsity of matter published under his name in the missionary magazines. But the refusal on his part to appear in print in this fashion was due perhaps more to his fear that journals or newspapers containing articles on missions would find their way into the hands of the Siamese government, which might be displeased with any frank narrative of observations. For this reason he frequently admonished the recipients of his letters that they should not take advantage of his absence to publish his comments.
When it came to the needs of the mission, however, he lent his hand and brain to supply the requirements. The following tracts are ascribed to him:
Scripture Facts, 1848.
Watt’s Catechism, bound with The Speller, 1853.
Child’s Catechism with Commandments and Lord’s Prayer, 1854.
Questions in Gospel History, 1864.
Stand by the Truth, 1869.
These last two in conjunction with Mrs. House.
After return to America he wrote a pamphlet, Notes on Obstetric Practises in Siam, (Putnam, 1897). In the volume, Siam and Laos (Presbyterian Board, 1884), several chapters were contributed by Dr. House, including the very comprehensive and accurate chapter on History of Missions in Siam; but so impersonally did he write the record that it would be almost impossible for the reader to detect that a good part of the story had been created in action as well as recounted by the writer.
The school for boys which Dr. House fostered almost continuously from its beginning was merged into the Boys’ Christian High School in 1889. This institution in turn developed in scope until it was enlarged into the “Bangkok Christian College,” which was organised in 1915.
XI
HARRIET PETTIT HOUSE
In former years a missionary’s wife was not under commission of the Board. Her status was similar to that of the pastor’s wife at home. It is not infrequent that the work of the wife is just as vital to the development of the church as that of her husband, but she receives no recognition in the official records of the church. Her honour is emblazoned where the eye cannot see it—in the hearts of the people. The wife of the pioneer missionary went out, not at the call of the Church, but at the call of the husband, with no promise of remuneration aside from the fabulous bridal endowment which the groom made at marriage “with all his worldly goods” and with no official rank to assure the preservation of her name on the roll of honour.
So it happens that the scanty reports from the early Siam mission seldom mentioned the name of Mrs. House. Yet one cannot read the letters of her husband without perceiving that she supplemented his educational work in a manner and to a degree that is worthy of special recognition. But apart from that, she succeeded finally in so organising and establishing female education in Siam that she has come to be regarded as the founder of permanent educational work for women in that country.