Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1912-08-06

Miss Norma Craven Tells OF Work as
Teacher in Mission School.

1
The following is the second inter-
esting letter received by Mrs. Lillian
Craven from her daughter, Miss Nor
ma, who has recently returned from a
] three yearss stay in missionary work
in the Malay peninsula, and who was
greatly interested in her work there
and hopes to return
81 was in girls school," said Miss
Craven. "There we're three of us
teachers in charge. My special work
was with the little ones. They had
never had kindergarten work there
and when introduced something of
that work, it took wonderfully. The
| primary department was very small
when / went there but had increased
to fifty before came away. We took
boys in the lower grades and kept our
school fees just below those of the
boys school. SO that we might attract
| pupils. When | went there the fees
were fifty cents a month. They were
raised twice, twenty-five cents each
| time, during the three years.
"Malay is under an English protect
crate, and EnoIiSh is the official Ian
1
and India, many Chinese and Hin
| docs live there, and both Chinese and
Hindoo are spoken. The Malay lam
guage, as it is spoken on the street,
cooley Malay as it is called, is easy
to learn. The Malay has noliterature
as far as / know. The language ordin-
arily spoken by the natives is a great
combination. If it seems easier to the
native to use a Chinese word than
Malay word he uses it. If it chances
| to be easy to use an English word or
a Hindoo word, he uses it. You can
| imagine the result.
"The children who come to our
school have no knowledge OF English.
| We nave to begin ar>the very begin
ing and teach them everything. The
schools are managed after the Eng
| lish system, which is to say they are
like what ours were fifty or one hun
dred years ago. The pupils are bright
in learning whatever they may ac-
| quire by memory. When some orig
| inal work is required it is more diff
| ficult for them.
sit is becoming more the fashion
| for girls to be educated. Boys who
| have had education want educated
| wives. Boys who have been at our
schools are usually anxious to have
| their sisters go to school, and the par
ents generally defer to the son who
has had such superior advantages.
| eyes, women live the secluded life
| in that country. 1t was an amusing
| fact that girls whose fathers were
rich enough to send their daughters
| to school in motor cars rode without
| face covering, just as we do, but girls
| who came in rickShawS invariably
| had little curtain drawn across the
front just high enough to cover all
| the face up to the eyes. | heard
nothing about suffrage for women
| there, except that China had enfran-
| chised its women. There are few
| educated women in Malay though the
number is increasing. We have more
pupils in the upper classes of the high
school than ever before. The Hindoo
women are more likely to be edu-
Gated than any Others in that country.
| "You know, in those countries it is
the grandmother or the mother-in-law
who is the power of the household.
She directs everything, her word is
law. OF course, this makes for con-
servatism, but all we can do is to ed
ucate the grandmothers of the future.
And that is what we are doing.
"The climate makes you lazy" said
Miss Craven. "It is not so hot as it
is often here, but it is hot contin-
uously. There is no cold season to
tone you up. | stood the climate pref
| ty well, though am not quiteso well
as when l left this country. liked
the work and the people, though of
course it does seem pleasant to see
all white faces again. In TAPPING, or
Taipeng, where I was, there were on
ly 200 white people in total popula-
ton of 5000. Taipeng is Chinese
word, meaning great peace
Miss Craven went to her post in the
far east by the eastern route and re-
turned by the western, so that in 60
ing and returning she went around
the world which does not seem at
all remarkable achievement, she
saws, when once you have done it.