Another branch of the work amongst girls is the Girls’ Home, successfully carried on by Miss Craven for twenty years. Here is a home provided for the daughters of evangelists and pastors and other Christian workers who come to Tananarive for their education. The girls attend the Central School and live in Miss Craven’s house, where they are taught domestic duties, lacemaking, embroidery, and other needlework at very small expense to the Society. Thirty girls are in residence, and there are always more waiting for admission. Miss Craven describes the work being carried on as follows:
“Now for a picture of the Home itself. There are one sitting and two bed rooms, all large and airy; the former has tables and benches, but, except for meals and preparation, the matted floor is just as much used. Books and small possessions are kept in covered baskets, one to each girl, and their clothes are in a cupboard or tin boxes. The girls sleep on mattresses laid on the floor, besides which there is no other furniture in the dormitories. They bring their own clothes, plates, spoons, mattresses and coverings, but as there is more ventilation than in their rooms at home, I keep a supply of blankets to lend to them when the nights are cold; an outside building provides kitchen, rice-house, bath-house, etc.
“The days’ occupations vary little; the girls are up at daylight, say 5.30 in the summer and 6.0 in winter, and, after a wash in the bath-house, come back to their household duties, sweeping and dusting their own rooms and some of ours, and preparing their breakfast of rice and milk, which is ready before seven o’clock. After that all the household assembles for morning prayers, and then there is the bustle of final preparation for school before they form in line and march off, two by two, looking a clean, tidy, and intelligent family, of which we may well feel proud. They all go to the Girls’ Central School, under the care of Miss Sibree, school hours being from 8 a.m. to 12.45 p.m. One hour every afternoon is given to school preparation, the remainder of the time being filled up with different kinds of needlework, while the little ones divide their time between work and play. One afternoon most of them are away at the C. E. weekly meeting at Analakely. The evening meal is ready at 6.30, we have prayers at 7 o’clock, and then they say ‘good-night,’ and troop off to bed, a few of the elder ones staying a little longer to do more lessons, or finish some piece of needlework. Saturday brings a change of work, for most of the girls go to do their weekly washing, not getting home until about 3 p.m. After dinner they are busy until bedtime ironing their clothes and getting ready for Sunday.
“At different times they have attended Faravohitra, Ampamarinana, Ambohipotsy, and Analakely Churches, and the Sunday Schools connected with them. Sunday evening is spent with me singing hymns, discussing Sunday School lessons and sermons, and other matters of interest. It is a happy time, and one to which we all look forward. The Sunday School has a great attraction for them, especially the yearly examination, for which they prepare several weeks beforehand, and from which they carry off some of the best prizes.
“Quarrels and troubles have not been frequent, and during the last two or three years have been increasingly rare. Severe discipline has been needed in very few cases, one being that of a girl who was sent away for continuing a clandestine correspondence; she has been carefully watched at home, and is turning out well. About three years ago we were very grieved when one, who had been with us for many years, took the law into her own hands and ran away to be married. We do not, however, give up hope that she will become a Christian woman and train her children well. The health of the girls has always been a great responsibility, and malarial fever has been very much more frequent during the latter half of the decade. We have not lost any by death, except one who died at home during holidays. We generally find that the girls improve in health while under our care, and we do not often need to call for the help of a doctor. Occasionally we have to regret that girls are removed by their parents while still young, but as a rule they remain with us until about to be married, or get married soon after leaving.
“As to the spiritual results, we may speak with some confidence. Three have joined the Church, and one has been baptised on profession of faith while still in the Home, and others have become Church members soon after marriage. The Spirit of Christ is clearly working in the hearts and lives of many who are still with us. Of one dear girl, who died very happily after the birth of her first child, her husband said to me: ‘I rejoice over the months we have lived together; she has done me good.’”
Another department of Institutional work is the L. M. S. Printing Press in Tananarive, which stands for much more than its name implies. It is true that a prosperous business in printing and book-binding is carried on, seventy men being constantly employed. But the Printing Press is a kind of “Universal Provider,” and anything, from a harmonium to a needle, can be purchased there. Under the able superintendence of Mr. Ashwell, a considerable annual profit is made. The magnitude of its operations is surprising. In the ten years ending in 1910, 1,833,243 books and pamphlets were issued from the office, including over 40,000 Bibles, 60,000 New Testaments (printed in England), nearly 350,000 lesson books, over 131,000 hymn books, and a large number of commentaries and other religious works.
No sketch of the Institutional work in Tananarive would be complete without a reference to the Medical Mission, which for many years has been carried on jointly by the F. F. M. A. and the L. M. S., the doctor being a missionary of the former Society. For the last sixteen years Dr. Moss has been the medical missionary in charge, and in his own person illustrates the close union between the two Societies in this work. He has been a missionary of the F. F. M. A., and is the son of an L. M. S. missionary, and his wife, a trained nurse, is the daughter of an L. M. S. missionary, the saintly Joseph Pearse. No department of missionary work in the capital suffered more from the advent of the French than the Medical Mission. A fine commodious hospital, opened in 1891 by the ex-Queen, was appropriated by the French Government in 1896, and since then the hospital work has been on a much smaller scale, and in fact there was no hospital at all between 1897 and 1903, although a large out-patient work was carried on. In the latter year a small Cottage Hospital was erected, round which the work has since centred under the devoted superintendence of Dr. and Mrs. Moss.
In barest outline some account has been given of the Institutional work of the Imerina Mission, which is centred in Tananarive. In this work the European missionary and the Native agent, working together side by side and in closest co-operation, are contributing to the building up of a strong Native Church, which in the future is to be God’s instrument in spreading the light into the dark places of the Island. This Church is as “a city set on a hill that cannot be hid.”