Across The Prairie In A Motor Caravan Part 10

It was most interesting to hear about the camps and clubs which they hold for adolescent boys and girls. When I gave an account of our caravan tour I took the opportunity of drawing attention to the moral question, and emphasised my belief that on this matter all the Churches should co-operate.

I sent a report of my work to Dr. Hiltz, which he read to the Executive Committee of the Board of Religious Education. They were good enough to show interest in the matter, and suggested that the Western Field Secretary should inquire what the diocese of Qu'Appelle thought of the scheme, and if the report were favourable he should try to develop the scheme in other Western dioceses.

Meanwhile Miss Margaret West, who had been trained at St. Christopher's and had been working in the diocese of Ottawa, became Diocesan Field Supervisor for Qu'Appelle. She lectured and gave demonstration lessons in Regina, and acted as secretary for the Sunday School by Post. When I suggested it, she expressed herself as quite ready to go out on the prairie in the spring of 1921, but she could not drive the caravan. I inquired of the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance in Canada if there were any ex-service girls who could drive caravans, and they replied that very few had volunteered to drive in France, and those who had done so were now dispersed and could not be communicated with. I then applied to various organisations in touch with ex-service women, and received a list of women who had driven motor ambulances or transports in France, but all of them wanted their expenses paid and most of them needed a small salary. There was no fund as yet, but through the "Recruiting Committee for Service in the Kingdom of G.o.d" I was fortunate in finding an honorary worker, who would pay all her own expenses. This was Miss Higginbotham, who had driven a car for years, and had also driven a Ford in France for the Y.M.C.A. and the Church Army, as well as doing canteen work.

Miss Higginbotham joined Miss West in the spring of 1921, taking out with her a large number of books and several thousand pictures which I was sending for distribution. They arranged to visit a very large district, comprising many more places than we had visited. At the end of the season Miss West wrote: "I have about 200 members collected this year for the Sunday School by Post . . . the children need the A.B.C. of the Faith . . . they are astonis.h.i.+ngly ignorant but very nice to teach, so appreciative of one's efforts and so ready to learn . . . I enjoyed the summer very much--the people were very kind." They had many adventures similar to ours in mud holes and thunderstorms, and also received similar kindness and hospitality. In the _Bishop's Leaflet_ for the diocese of Qu'Appelle (December, 1921) a summary of their work is given, which ends thus:

"What are the results of this itinerary? The Diocesan Field Supervisor has gained an intimate knowledge of the needs and difficulties of the prairie town Sunday Schools and has got into touch with many of the teachers, so that she is now in a better position to give a.s.sistance.

Also nearly 200 boys and girls living in districts where there is no Church of England Sunday School have been enrolled in the Sunday School by Post and are now receiving regular instruction in the Faith of the Church."

In a letter dated April 26, 1921, Dr. Hiltz gave us the following encouragement: "At the meeting of the Executive Committee held last Friday I read extracts of your latest letter telling of the plans for 1921. The Committee was very much interested, and I have much pleasure in forwarding to you the enclosed resolution, which will give you some idea of the att.i.tude of our Executive towards the work which has been done." The resolution was as follows: "That this Committee desires to express its great appreciation of the work done in the diocese of Qu'Appelle by Miss Hasell and Miss Ticehurst during the summer of 1920, and rejoices to learn that the work is to be continued during the summer of 1921 by Miss West and Miss Higginbotham. The Committee thanks these ladies for their great help, and commends their spirit and self-sacrifice for the emulation of the whole Church."

Dr. Hiltz added that he was calling the attention of the General Synod to the caravan plan. (The General Synod consists of the four Archbishops, all the bishops and clergy, and certain representative laymen from each diocese of the Dominion.)

The following extracts are from the Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the General Board of Religious Education of the Church of England in Canada, October, 1921.

From the Report of the General Secretary:

"_Diocesan Conference and Synods._--A feature of all the conferences and synods attended, was the outspoken conviction of the Bishops and officers of the dioceses of the urgent necessity for the immediate increase of effort in the training of the children of the Church in the Faith of their fathers. The Bishop of New Westminster . . . cited the fact that communistic leaders in Great Britain and Europe recognised the strategic importance of influencing the young, and had established Sunday Schools for propagating their doctrines. The Bishop urged that the Church must not be less alive to a great basal principle.

"Without doubt, the present is a critical period in the life of our Church in the West. The great dearth of clergy has left many parishes, formerly occupied, without Sunday Schools or any other Church organisation. The Church of the future, in the country districts of the West, will be the Church that will now go into these fields and train and enfold the young."

"_The Caravan Plan._--The Executive Committee asked for a report on the use of the caravan for religious educational work in the prairie dioceses. There can be no question that the van can be used to accomplish great results. . . . The van idea is rapidly gaining ground. Qu'Appelle Diocese has three vans at work, one of which is for purposes of religious education alone.

Saskatchewan Diocese secured a fine new van this year, which is being operated for general missionary work. From experience this summer, the Field Secretary is prepared to recommend its use to every diocese that may be prepared to man and use it in scattered missionary districts.

"A van or motor-car, under the direction of the Field Secretary, could be utilised to good purpose in our work. Two competent lady-workers in Calgary volunteered for field work during July, but we had no means of sending them out. A motor could have been used steadily during August, and it could be sent on special missions into other dioceses."

From the Report of the Executive Committee:

"_The Caravan Plan for Reaching Spa.r.s.ely-Settled Districts._--Following up the suggestions of the Board at its last meeting, the General Secretary communicated with several persons in the Diocese of Qu'Appelle, with a view to finding out how far, in their judgment, the Caravan Plan, as used by Miss Hasell and Miss Ticehurst, had proved successful.

"The consensus of opinion was that the results were good, but could only be made permanent by a regular system of visitations. . . .

"The Western Field Secretary has had an opportunity during the summer to investigate this work, and has been doing some experimenting in the Diocese of Calgary. The Diocese of Qu'Appelle also tried out the plan again this past summer under the direction of Miss West.

"As a result of the investigations of the Field Secretary, he recommends that the plan be adopted in every diocese that is prepared to man and use the van properly in scattered missionary districts."

From the Report of the Parochial Department, under the heading, _Council on Rural Schools_: "In one Western diocese the Sunday School caravan similar to the mission van has proved of great value to the work of rural schools."

From the above it will be seen that the caravan scheme supplies a felt need, and as ex-students of St. Christopher's and ex-service girls have volunteered, the only hindrance is lack of funds.[8]

As showing the approval which this work has received from the Church's representatives, I may add that the Bishops of Saskatchewan and Calgary have both invited me to work a van in their dioceses in 1922.

It was a bitter disappointment to me to be unable to talk over the results of our work with Aylmer Bosanquet, for it was she who originated the scheme, and she would have delighted in the details of its working.

But she was in British Columbia when I returned from the prairie, so all I could do was to write her a full report, and keep her in touch with all the developments of the work. She soon grew too weak to write herself, but her interest never flagged, and she dictated most encouraging and stimulating letters. She pa.s.sed away on Shrove Tuesday, February, 1921.

She was a true missionary, with a gracious and loving personality. She had a definite call and followed it. This led her to exchange a life of luxury for one of hards.h.i.+p, and to expend much of her wealth in the service of G.o.d. She laboured unceasingly, and with a vision which seemed to leave a living impress on all with whom she came in contact, and inspired them to greater heights of devotion and service. As the lessons of childhood are indelibly engraven on the mind, there must be many prairie children who will bless her name in after life for the imprint she left upon them. She had a statesmanlike grasp of the trend of events, and lived to do a wonderful work in Western Canada, pointing to lofty ideals and raising the standard of public opinion in this young and growing country, not only from the Church point of view, but also from the Imperial standpoint.

She has been one of the glorious instruments used in helping to bring about G.o.d's purpose, that "the earth shall be filled with the glory of G.o.d as the waters cover the sea."

[Footnote 8: See Appendix IV.]

APPENDIX

I.

The Fellows.h.i.+p of the Maple Leaf was started under the directors.h.i.+p of Dr. G. E. Lloyd[9] in order to remedy the great shortage of teachers in Western Canada. It aims at enlisting Englishwomen who are not merely taking up teaching as a livelihood, but who are "willing to do something beyond what they are paid to do, for the sake of Church and Empire."

Their object is the building up of character and the development of loyalty to the Empire, and they are to go specially to the prairie schools among the foreign population (now called the New Canadians), many of whom cannot speak English. The problem is--What can be done to make the un-English settlers British in sentiment? Wherever immigration spreads over the new territory, there, in two or three years' time, appear the little country schools, built by the settlers out of the rates and taxes, or from bonds guaranteed by the Provincial Government.

All the children of the district, from four miles on either side, go to that school. In Saskatchewan alone three hundred new schools were built in 1915, five hundred the year before, and more than six hundred in the year before the War. Not only do these hundreds of new schools need teachers, but there is a continual thinning of the ranks as teachers go on to other professions or the women teachers marry. Many of the leading men in Canada have taught in these little one-teacher schools at the beginning of their career--such men as Sir Robert Bordon, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Sam Hughes, and Sir George Forster.

The demand for teachers in these schools is so great that very many non-British persons are accepted, and it is, to say the least, very unlikely that such persons can or will train these young British subjects as Britain would have them trained. It follows that there is here a magnificent opportunity for patriotic young Englishwomen. They would also be able to help the children of those isolated Anglicans who have no resident clergyman, as well as the mixed populations of "anybody's people." Of course, no Church of England doctrine or any other doctrine may be taught in the day schools. These are Government schools, and every religion has an equal right there. But much may be done out of school hours.

Anyone can be a teacher who can pa.s.s the Government test and who takes a short "Method" course in the Normal School. If she has any practical experience of teaching she may obtain a "Provisional Certificate," and begin to teach at once, taking the Method Course later on when the prairie schools are closed in winter. The teachers are paid a fair salary. The lowest is about 14 a month, ranging up to 45 in the towns for head teachers. The higher stipends, of course, are for those who make teaching their life-work. Any further particulars may be obtained from the Rev. P. J. Andrews, Secretary, The Fellows.h.i.+p of the Maple Leaf, 13, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. 1.

II.

The present hospital arrangements in the prairie provinces are as follows: The Regina Railway Mission started hospitals in a few of the little towns where they had established missions, and some of the munic.i.p.al councils took up the matter and opened a great many more. But there are no free hospitals in the West. A patient's expenses are about 22s. a day (five or six dollars), which makes a hospital prohibitive for most. Many farms are miles away from any sort of medical or surgical attendance, and as the farmer's wife has generally no one to help her with her house and children, she can seldom, if ever, go away into hospital for her confinements, and at these times often has no one with her except her husband. Of course, all goes well sometimes, but it is obvious that child and mother must suffer should complications arise. I met a great many farmers' wives in outlying districts whose health had been ruined through lack of skilled attention at these critical times.

There is a splendid opening here for ex-V.A.D.'s. The Social Service Council of Saskatchewan is offering free training in a munic.i.p.al hospital to any V.A.D., after which she would go out to the farms as a nursing housekeeper, her work being to give the mother professional attention and to keep the home running while she is laid up. She would need some knowledge of the domestic arts, such as was.h.i.+ng and cooking.

Her work would be similar to that of a village district nurse in England, only she would have but one family under her care at a time. It should be added that the father of a family helps a great deal in the house. These nursing housekeepers would be paid $17 to $20 per week, just half the salary of a graduate nurse. Thus they would be earning a good income and at the same time doing a n.o.ble work. In this new country the health of the mothers and children is of supreme importance.

Applications for further particulars about nursing housekeepers may be made to the following secretaries for Social Service: Mr. W. J. Stewart and Mr. W. P. Reckie, 45, Canada Life Building, Regina, Saskatchewan, Western Canada.

III.

The Women's Auxiliary is the women's branch of the Anglican Church Missionary Society for Canada. There are members in every district, and they work magnificently for the cause, raising enormous sums of money.

One place, which had only three members, made about $300 in the year (about 60 or 70). They get money by sewing meetings, teas, and social gatherings. The money is used first for the parish, to build or furnish the vicarage house, and supply church furnis.h.i.+ngs, etc., and then to help the work among non-Christians, both in Canada and overseas.

IV.

The cost of a caravan is 316 ($1,250); running expenses, 40 ($160); pa.s.sage out and travelling expenses, about 50, but for ex-service girls, who can get a free pa.s.sage, 29; board and lodging on the prairie for five or six months, about 40; board and lodging in Regina, between 3 and 4 a week ($15). Donations may be made payable to Miss Eva Hasell, Canada Mission Account, London, City, and Midland Bank, Penrith, c.u.mberland. A sum of more than 300 has already been contributed.

[Footnote 9: Now Bishop of Saskatchewan.]