“February 14, 1853. Today an addition to my family and to my responsibilities. A bright little Taichen Chinese boy, eleven years old, son of the old Chinese teacher of Mr. Gutzlaff. The old man is in trouble—a debt with interest. So he came to us offering to sell the lad, knowing that the boy would be educated and in good hands. It is so difficult to secure any other way but by buying them, boys for any length of time for schools in Siam, that the end would almost justify the means, were we to actually buy them, as Siamese masters do. As it was I had a paper drawn up in which I was to have a boy for seven years for eight dollars, after which he was to be restored to the father free—a kind of apprenticeship.”
The father was one of the cholera patients whom Dr. House saved from death. This lad’s name was Naah. Some nine months later the father, upon his death bed, gave the boy to Dr. House.
A year or more later, commenting upon this practise of obtaining boys for the school, the doctor said:
“This we find is the best, if not the only way we can secure the keeping of these native children in our boarding school. And I do not hesitate to do it when we have the money to spare. At present have outstanding one hundred and nine dollars, invested in seven children.”
And then he slyly wonders what the abolitionists at home would say if they heard of this plan of “buying children” to educate them. In the course of a few years the boarding schools grew to fill the capacity of the mission. From the beginning the curriculum included the principles of domestic economy and manual training in a practical form. The girls shared in the house work; the older ones also assisted in teaching the younger ones. The boys had their allotment of work, so that the expense of the school was kept at a minimum; for the first full year the cost was only two hundred and eighty-one dollars, exclusive of Kee-Eng’s salary.
TO KORAT
Tired from his confining labours, in December, 1853, Dr. House set out for a tour to the distant city of Korat, some two hundred miles in a northeast radius from the capital, but involving nearly twice that distance of travel. The undertaking had the approval of King Mongkut, who not only issued the usual passport but sent a letter commanding all officials to afford assistance and protection, and directing the governor of Korat to give supplies and other facilities as might be required. The journey occupied fifty-eight days and was made partly by boat, partly by elephant train and partly by buffalo cart. A party of five trusty natives accompanied him, including Ati, his faithful teacher.
Korat, the capital of the province of the same name, had a population of some thirty thousand. Dr. House was the first white person to visit the city, at least in modern times. The out journey was made by boat up the Meinam to Salaburi on an east branch of the stream two days above Ayuthia. There elephants were hired to carry the party with their burden of books and supplies. The course lay across country through the jungle and over the mountains, requiring seventeen days from Bangkok. In reporting home his safe return he wrote briefly:
“I have not had time since my return to draw up a detailed account of all that befell me on the road, but I think I can promise you an interesting letter next time—that is, if a traveller’s tale of life in the woods, riding on elephants (being thrown from the back of one and lying at the mercy of the huge creature—with those great feet pawing the air six inches from my head), riding in buffalo carts, footing it, roughing it; now shooting deer or peacock, now entirely out of provisions and making a meal of rice and burnt coarse sugar; seeing great tiger tracks and hearing their cry, sleeping in the open air by the watch fire, three nights and four days without seeing human habitation—with divers other adventures, will interest you; or if accounts of the glad reception my books and gospel message seemed to receive in the many villages and hamlets and in the city, where no messenger with glad tidings had ever gone before.”