INSIDE THE ORPHANAGE[ToList]
There is yet another side of the orphanage problem. We have been obliged, due to the lack of any boarding-school, to accept bright children from isolated homes so as to give them a chance in life. It has been the truest of love messages to several. The children always repay, whether the parents pay anything or not; and as so much of the care of them is volunteer, and friends have assumed the expenses of a number of the children, the budget has never been unduly heavy. They do all their own work, and thanks to the inestimably valuable help of the Needlework Guild of America through its Labrador branch, the clothing item has been made possible. In summer we use neither boots nor stockings for the children unless absolutely necessary. Our harbour people still look on that practice askance; but ours are the healthiest lot of children on the coast, and their brown bare legs and tough, well-shaped feet are a great asset to their resistance to tuberculosis, their arch-enemy, and no small addition to the attraction of their merry faces and hatless heads.
Even though Gabriel, Prince Pomiuk, never lived within its walls, the real beginning of the idea of our Children's Home was due to him; and one feels sure that his spirit loves to visit the other little ones who claim this lonely coast as their homeland also.
The one test for surgery which we allow in these days is its "end results." Patients must not be advertised as cured till they have survived the treatment many years. Surely that is man's as well as God's test. Certainly it is the gauge of the outlay in child life. What is the good of it all? Does it pay? In the gift of increasing joy to us, in its obvious humanity and in its continuous inspiration, it certainly does make the work of life here in every branch the better.
The solution of the problem of inducing the peace of God and the Kingdom of God into our "parish" is most likely to be solved by wise and persevering work among the children. For in them lies the hope of the future of this country, and their true education and upbringing to fit them for wise citizenship have been cruelly neglected in this "outpost of Empire."
Another menace to the future welfare of the coast has been the lack of careful instruction and suitable opportunities for the development, physical, mental, and spiritual, of its girls. Without an educated and enlightened womanhood, no country, no matter how favored by material prosperity, can hope to take its place as a factor in the progress of the world. In our orphanage and educational work we have tried to keep these two ideas constantly before us, and to offer incentives to and opportunities for useful life-work in whatever branch, from the humblest to the highest, a child showed aptitude.
Through the vision, ability, and devotion of Miss Storr, Miss Spalding, and their helpers, in training the characters as well as the bodies of the children at the Home, and by the generous support of friends of children elsewhere, we have been able to turn out each year from its walls young men and women better fitted to cope with the difficult problems of this environment, and to offer to its service that best of all gifts—useful and consecrated personalities.