voluntary contributions for its support. Food, clothing, money, in short, everything that can be useful in the establishment, are given it. Donations come to it from all parts of the country, for the Mission is widely known, and thousands of Christian people give it their assistance. The railroad and express companies forward, without charge, all packages designed for it.
Children are the chief care of the Mission. Those in charge of it believe that first impressions are the strongest and most lasting. They take young children away from the haunts of vice and crime, and clothe and care for them. They are regularly and carefully instructed in the rudiments of an English education, and are trained to serve the Lord. At a proper age they are provided with homes, or with respectable employment, and are placed in a way to become useful Christian men and women. Year after year the work goes on. Children are taken in every day, if there is room for them, and are trained in virtue and intelligence, and every year the “Home,” as its inmates love to call it, sends out a band of brave, bright, useful young people into the world. But for its blessed aid they would have been so many more vagrants and criminals.
The school averages about 450 pupils. In the twenty years of the career of the Mission thousands have been educated by it. As I passed through the various class-rooms I found children of all ages. In the infant-class were little ones who were simply kept warm and amused. The amusement was instructive, as well, as they were taught to recognize various objects by the young lady in charge of them. They all bore evidences of the greatest poverty, but they were unquestionably happy and contented.
“Do you find harshness necessary?” I asked of the lady principal, who was my guide.
“No,” was the reply. “We rely upon kindness. If they do not wish to stay with us, we let them go away in peace. They are mostly good children,” she added, “and they really love the school.”
A little curly-headed girl came up to her as she was speaking:
“What does Louisa want, now?” she asked, encouraging the child with a kind smile.
“Please, Mrs. Van Aiken,” said the child, “Nelly Jackson wants another cake.”
Nelly Jackson was one of the tiniest and plumpest of the infant class I had just inspected, and I had found her with a cake in hand at the time of my visit. Mrs. Van Aiken hesitated a moment, and then gave the desired permission.
“Cakes,” she added, turning to me, “constitute one of our rewards of merit for the little ones. When they are very good we give them doll-babies at Christmas.”