Ten years in Burma

by Julius Smith

But we were needing the new house badly before we got it. Part of the roof was nailed on, the frame completed, but only a very little of the plank walls begun, when our old hut collapsed entirely. We had often patched the rotting bamboos, but as the monsoon passed away the east wind, as usual on those hills, began to blow with great force, and the frail walls repeatedly gave way before it, and finally one morning the entire roof and sides were blown away. A very wonderful providence was manifested, in that no one of our large family was hurt. Most of the smaller children had been romping on the east side of the house, and the gale of wind was blowing from the east. In their play they suddenly ran down the path fifty yards or so from the house. In that instant the roof and poles that held it down were lifted and hurled upon the place where they had been playing the moment before. The loose pieces of corrugated iron cut the air like swords, and some of them were carried far down the mountain side, which falls in precipitous descent from that point. Had the children not been moved away for that moment by the unseen hand of God, they must have been cruelly hurt. As it was they were out of danger, while those of us that were in the collapsed house suffered no harm. This is but one of many indications which we had of the kindly Providence in all our pioneering. For nearly three years from the beginning of this work, there was not a case of serious sickness nor an injury of consequence by any accident suffered by any of our little colony.

But as our old hut was gone beyond repair or reconstruction, and as the wind was now cold, for it was November, the matter of providing shelter became a serious matter. The frame of our new house was completed, and a part of the roof was on, also a few planks nailed upright at one corner. Taking this beginning as a starting, we inclosed a part of the space of the building by bamboo mats, laid a little flooring temporarily, and then, having divided this into two rooms, we moved into our new quarters. The workmen went right on with the construction of the house. We lived in the house while it was being builded. When completed, though built of unseasoned wood, poorly sawed and roughly put together, it was a palace compared with what we had before, and indeed it continues to this day to do very good service.

First Permanent Building on Thandaung

About the time the house was completed, Miss Bellingham, the generous donor of the thousand dollars, came to Burma to see what use we had made of the money. She spent a week on Thandaung, to our great delight and hers. She consented that the building might bear her name, and we have since called it “Bellingham Home.”

Shortly after we began operations on this hill, public interest in the place began to be shown. I wrote some letters to the Rangoon papers, and visitors did likewise. The advantages of the place were laid before the Government. Officials began to come up on tours of inspection. The place grew in favor, and it was planned to give Government sanction to making it into a station. A new road up the mountain, giving a better grade than the old road, and the cart road across the plain was metalled. The old travelers’ bungalow on the hill, that had fallen into decay since the military left the place, was rebuilt. So the improvement goes on till now. The latest plan contemplates a cart road running entirely up the mountain, and the survey of the whole hill into building sites. There is every promise of this becoming the favorite resort in Burma for the people who seek a change from the heat of the plains.

In the meantime the scheme has had a good degree of prosperity, in spite of the fact that it was pioneer in character and location. The irresponsible gossips continue to attack it, the fearful in heart who love their bondage to the old order still stand agape as they see the school continue on its way. The people who have been beating their way through the world still cry it down. But an increasing number of people who believe in self-dependence, and the character it develops, are in great sympathy with this work. Some who can pay full boarding fees send their children to us. They have adopted with us the theory that this self-help is to be accepted as a necessary part of a well-appointed system of education.

There has been a specially significant growth in usefulness among the girls. They have learned to bake excellent bread, cook and serve a variety of food in a cleanly and orderly manner, and to keep the entire house in good taste and comfort. This is realized as a great accomplishment when one has seen the slovenly, untidy houses commonly found where the woman in the house does not do anything to keep the house in order herself, and counts it impossible that she should do what she chooses to call “coolie’s work.” A woman like this would not know enough even to instruct good servants in keeping the house, much less the worthless servants she can ill afford to keep, whose only qualification is that they are as incompetent as servants as their mistress is as head of the establishment. Yet almost universally such women would prefer to exist in a hovel, and give orders to a miserable servant, rather than have a decent abode, if they had to sweep, scrub, or dust it with their own hands. In contrast to these are the girls trained in our industrial school. They can do all things necessary to keeping a house, and have almost forgotten that there are any servants in the world. They have done all this, and at the same time they have been in school, doing as good work as girls in other schools, where they depend on servants for even buttoning their clothes.

Our girls are self-respecting young women, far beyond what they could have been had they not received the advantages in character that come from self-help in ordinary daily tasks.

The boys have generally profited by the outdoor work. Having nothing to begin with, it has not been possible as yet to organize the outdoor work as that within doors. Plans are under way, however, to develop this branch of the school, hoping for a large industrial plant.