Untitled

MISSION SCHOOLS FOR MEN AND BOYS. 89Middle Schools in Cliengtu, each bringing its scholarsand its school furnishings and apparatus and poolingthem in the union. In the beginning of 1910 the BaptistMission joined in with a few students. The teachingbuildings are union property, the cost of which is sharedequally by the four missions. Each mission has itsseparate dormitory on its own property, so that the students are thus brought in close contact with some one ortwo of the teachers. All the running expenses, including the salaries of Chinese teachers, are met out of theunion fund. This fund is almost entirely supplied fromstudents fees. So far this experiment in organic unionhas proved entirely satisfactory to all concerned.In addition to these four schools there are threegirls schools that do work of middle school grade.They are the Friends girls school at Tongchuan andthe girls schools under the American Methodist andCanadian Methodist Missions in Chengtu. Althoughthese schools are at the present time registered in theUnion as Middle Schools they are not yet equipped to dofull middle school work. The bulk of their work atthe present time is of senior primary grade, though theyhope more and more to develop a middle school coursesuitable for girls.Speaking generally in regard to the three grades ofschools above mentioned, the policy of the missions inWest China is to establish a Junior Primary school inevery out-station under the charge of a Christian teacherwho can teach not only the old Chinese books but alsogive the boys and girls instruction in elementary arithmetic, geography, and hygiene, and lead the children to aknowledge of simple Christian facts. No mission is ableas yet to carry out this program in full owing to the lackof properly equipped teachers, but this lack is being gradually met and with the development of the normal department of the Chengtu Union Middle School, which made abeginning this year, it is hoped that in a very few yearsteachers with the required training will be forthcoming.