W.C. White Visit around 1911

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#CC9966" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640dkesoe.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Medical Missionary Press</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#006633" FACE="Arial" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FF3300" FACE="Arial" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#CC0033" FACE="Arial" > </FONT><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Medical Missionary Press"><B>home</B></A></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CC9966" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Back to <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Hillcrest School">The Hillcrest School</A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> W.C. White Visit around 1911</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>A visit to</B></div> <div> <B>HILLCREST SCHOOL</B></div> <bR> <div>      We found the Hillcrest Training School pleasantly located about six miles northwest of Nashville. In it there are ninety-three acres. The shape of the farm is that of a piece of pie, with a big bite cut off the point. The front, facing White's Creek Pike, is narrow. The back, bounded by White's Creek, is broad. The front one third is a beautiful oval hill, dotted with second growth oak, hickory, and walnut trees. Back of the hill are sixty acres of good bottom land.</div> <div>      When I first saw the place in January 1908, there were two buildings on top of the hill, an old barn tumbling to pieces, and a small but well-built brick house of two large rooms, a veranda, and also an outside kitchen.</div> <div>      Sixteen months later, on our way to the General Conference, we visited the school again, and found that they had built a substantial barn, two cottages for students, and a five-roomed cottage each for brethren Staines and Bralliar. The class work was well begun with twelve students. They had planted orchards and vineyards, and much small fruit.</div> <div>      After two summers had passed, it was encouraging to observe the development of the work. There were fifteen students, doing regular class work. To accommodate these, two more cottages had been built. The class recitations were conducted in the large rooms of the brick house. </div> <div>      The orchard showed a fine growth, and gave promise of fruit in a few years. In it were 500 peach and apple-trees, forty pear, forty plum, and thirty Japanese persimmon-trees; forty pecan, thirty English walnut, thirty chestnut, besides shade and ornamental trees. There were also three hundred and fifty grapevines, fifteen hundred blackberry, twenty-five hundred raspberry, five thousand strawberry, six thousand asparagus, and one hundred rhubarb plants.</div> <div>      The crops on the farm for 1910 were excellent. There were fifteen acres of oats, yielding over five hundred bushels; sixteen acres in meadow; five acres in alfalfa; forty-nine acres in corn; six acres of sorghum and peas; two acres of Irish potatoes, and about two and a half acres of sweet potatoes, besides sweet corn, pumpkins, melons, tomatoes and other garden stuff.</div> <div>      It is the conviction of the teachers in this school that self-support will be attained more nearly through the raising, as far as possible, of all that will be needed by the school in the way of food stuffs, than by the raising of crops to sell.</div> <div>      Writing about this school a few weeks before our visit, Mrs. N. H. Druillard expressed her expectations regarding it as follows: “We have great reason to be encouraged about our school work in the South, both for the white and the colored. The work at Hillcrest is doing well. They have a nice class of students, who are being quickly prepared to go out and establish small rural schools among their own people. They will try to show them how to work the soil, to care for their homes, and in fact be real missionaries in the community. They will go from house to house as teachers, canvassers, nurses, etc., and live among the people. They think that with what they can earn and what people will give them in the neighborhood, it will be sufficient for their support.</div> <div>      “It takes a great deal of courage for them to undertake this work. Some of them feel that it never can be done. We can tell better after they have made the attempt. If the school at Hillcrest had sufficient donations to pay for their land and build one or two more cottages, I think they would be able to make their school self-supporting."</div> <div>      Writing about the experiences of the school, Brother Staines says: “From the first we have had all the students that our limited facilities would accommodate. All have been carrying regular class work, and are making as good progress as could be hoped for. Without an exception they are planning on getting out into the work among their own people just as early as they are prepared to do so. With all of our students it has meant hard work and long hours to keep up their expenses and continue their school work. In this they have, however, been doing nobly.</div> <div>      “Sundays they attend the Sunday-schools in the neighborhood, or visit among the people and put out considerable literature. Our company was organized into a church in January , 1910; and the first action taken after completing the organization was to apply for our quota of Ministry of Healing, and proceed to sell the same. One secured six orders for this book in one day. Quite a little has been with the Temperance number of the Youth's Instructor.¡±</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>The Webb Farm</B></div> <div>      The work at Hillcrest had been in full swing only a few months when it was seen that the farm was not large enough to furnish profitable work for a group of twenty-five or thirty students. Therefore when the adjoining farm of ninety-five acres of good bottom land was offered for sale, the leaders in the work at the school felt that they ought to secure it.</div> <div> Moreover on this place there was a well-built house of eight large rooms, and it was thought that the plan of the house was favorable to its use as a small sanitarium. So this place has been purchased, and through the liberality of our brethren and sisters in many States it is being paid for.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Hopes and Expectations</B></div> <div>      It is the desire of both students and teachers at Hillcrest that this school may be able to give its students a through training in those branches of education that will fit them not only to establish and conduct mission schools, but also to care for the sick, and to teach the principles of healthful living.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>The Health Work</B></div> <div>      The necessity for a thorough and far-reaching effort to be made in the Southern States for the education of the masses in the matter of sanitation, hygiene, and dietetics, is seen everywhere, and especially in the mountain regions.</div> <div>      Those who are conducting mission schools in needy districts, whether for the white or colored people, find that a large and important part of their work will ever be to care for the sick, and to teach the people how to avoid sickness, and develop robust health of body and mind.</div> <div>      If the teachers in the mountain schools are to be strong along these lines, the instruction at the Madison Normal must be especially strong in its medical side. It is this that has led Professors Sutherland and Magan to gather about them a faithful band of assistant teachers, and then turn their faces toward the tedious task of acquiring a medical education. They did not feel satisfied to have only a superficial knowledge of one of the most important parts of the work which is before the students in the Madison Normal School.</div> <div> The last time I visited Madison, I saw twenty-two of the fifty students in Dr Lillian Magan's class in nursing. She was giving them a good, hard lesson, and they were handling it well. These students were doing nearly all the work at the sanitarium.</div> <div>      In answer to my inquiries regarding the operating of the sanitarium so largely by teachers and students of the school, Mrs. Druillard said: "So far we have not run one cent in debt. When we are full at the sanitarium, the school sends extra help to make the work go easy. When there are but few patients, we close down everything we can, economizing on time and labor in order to live within our means.</div> <div>      "When there is very little to do at the sanitarium, the school takes the workers. When there is a rush at the sanitarium, the school lays aside some other work, and sends extra help to the health institution, In this way we get along nicely. This is the value of running the two institutions together."</div> <div> Then I asked, "What does the sanitarium mean to the school enterprise financially? Is it a burden, as we thought it might be, or is it a help?"</div> <div>     "We do not like to talk very much," Mrs. Druillard said, “either about losses or gains. On the farm there have been some losses this year, and on the sanitarium some gains. The sanitarium has purchased from the school farm products to the amount of seven hundred dollars. It has paid one of half the water expense, ninety dollars. It has paid to students for labor thirteen hundred dollars, and there is a net gain of eight hundred dollars."</div> <div>      Thus it has proved that the sanitarium work in connection with the school has not only provided practical training to prospective teachers, but has helped students earn their way, and has also been a help financially.</div> <div> After witnessing the practical advantages of this union of educational and medical work at Madison, and considering the conditions among the sick negroes about Nashville, the leaders in the Hillcrest School believe they ought as soon as possible to arrange for the Webb cottage to be used as a health home.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Report by W.C. White</div> <div> (circa 1911)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Information received from Bob Sutherland (Grandson of E. A. Sutherland) in 2003</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>