Whilst his employment was creating a demand for a benevolent gift from some friend of christian education he was unconscious of that fact, and is happy in the consciousness, that he is earning his way through school like a man;—one, who wants to make most of himself. He goes forth to enter upon the duties of active life as a true or "good soldier" prepared to "endure hardness," if necessary, and ready to lend a helping hand to other worthy young people.
ENLARGEMENT AND PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT
The zealous interest of the superintendent in this self-help industrial department appears in the broad foundation he had hoped to lay for it in the purchase of so many acres for the Oak Hill farm.
There were other good motives that prompted the purchase of land, when the opportunity was afforded to do so at it which price in 1908 such as provision for future supplies of wood as a cheap fuel, about twenty-five cords a year being needed, and ample pastures for the herds of cattle and hogs, that are easily and profitably raised and greatly needed, but the most urgent motive was the earnest desire to provide an agricultural base large enough to enable the self-help department of the academy to become in time self-supporting.
"Enlargement" and "permanent improvement" became the watchwords while laying the foundation for this department.
The manifest need of it had been deeply and indelibly impressed. The conviction also prevailed that, when properly organized and developed, so as to meet their most urgent needs, the self-help department in an educational institution works like a live magnet in attracting the patronage of many worthy young people.
Permanent improvement year after year by self-supporting students, seeking training is an arrangement that has in it the germ of expansion, that means enlargement and growth with passing years. This was the ideal towards which we were moving with might and main. We wanted to plant the live magnet, that would make Oak Hill an attractive and pre-eminently useful educational center for all the Choctaw Freedmen.
There are no annual taxes on lands used for public or mission school purposes, and all the annual income tends to lessen to the Board, the local expenses of the teachers and students. The net income from the farm is the surplus that remains after deducting the cost of management from the gross receipts.
Oak Hill in 1905.