ng
enough in school to make sufficient progress, they became teachers and
Sunday school superintendents on their return to their own
neighborhoods. Some of them are still teaching and one after teaching
eleven years has made a good record as a faithful minister of the
gospel.
[Illustration: THE PRESBYTERY OF KIAMICHI, GARVIN, OKLA., APRIL, 1914.]
[Illustration: WILEY HOMER, HIS PEOPLE AND CHAPEL AT GRANT, 1904.]
[Illustration: REV. T. K. BRIDGES.]
[Illustration: REV. W. J. STARKS.]
[Illustration: W. R. FLOURNOY.]
[Illustration: DOLL BEATTY.]
[Illustration: REV. P. S. MEADOWS.]
[Illustration: JAMES R. CRABTREE.]
Those that have married have in most instances become the founders of
prosperous christian homes, and the most influential leaders in their
several communities. By their industry, frugality and piety, they are
proving themselves, in a very commendable way, to be "the salt of the
earth and the light of the world," among their own people.
Several of them died soon after their return from school. This is a
disappointment that is more deeply felt in Mission work than elsewhere.
The proportion of short lives in this list is perhaps no greater than
would be found in similar lists taken from other sections of the
country. Good health and the disposition to take good care of it are
very important assets, on the part of those who are encouraged to take
special courses of training in missionary educational institutions.
These incidents were not without their influence on the mind of
Alexander Reid in leading him to approve the plan of establishing a
boarding school for the Freedmen in Indian Territory and Oak Hill as the
most needy and favorable location for it. The Board was maintaining
missions at Muskogee and Atoka, but those locations were not then
attractive. One of his last acts in 1885, his last year, was the
purchase of the Old Log House from Robin Clark for the use of the
school.
The fact this emigration to distant schools continued, after the
establishment of Oak Hill as a boarding school, awakens a little
surprise. Only a very limited number of them in later years, remained at
Oak Hill to complete the Grammar course. The good old rule of local
prosperity "Patronize Home Industries," or institutions, seemed to have
been forgotten. The sentiment began to prevail that any school abroad
was better than one at home. The general prevalence of this sentiment
tended to put a slight check upon
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