XIHARRIET PETTIT HOUSE

In former years a missionary’s wife was not under commission of the Board. Her status was similar to that of the pastor’s wife at home. It is not infrequent that the work of the wife is just as vital to the development of the church as that of her husband, but she receives no recognition in the official records of the church. Her honour is emblazoned where the eye cannot see it—in the hearts of the people. The wife of the pioneer missionary went out, not at the call of the Church, but at the call of the husband, with no promise of remuneration aside from the fabulous bridal endowment which the groom made at marriage “with all his worldly goods” and with no official rank to assure the preservation of her name on the roll of honour.

So it happens that the scanty reports from the early Siam mission seldom mentioned the name of Mrs. House. Yet one cannot read the letters of her husband without perceiving that she supplemented his educational work in a manner and to a degree that is worthy of special recognition. But apart from that, she succeeded finally in so organising and establishing female education in Siam that she has come to be regarded as the founder of permanent educational work for women in that country.

Harriet Pettit House was born in Waterford, New York, Dec. 23, 1820. Her ancestry was Scotch and English. On the mother’s side the line goes back to William Mitchell and his wife, Agnes Buchanan, who emigrated from Glasgow to New England in 1755. The male line in America began with the Englishman Abraham Waterhouse, who came to New England, 1729, and “who sleeps with the pilgrim settlers at Saybrook, Conn.” Her paternal grandfather, John Pettit, one of the original settlers of Waterford and a member of the first board of village trustees, came from Chester, Conn., whence a few years later he brought his bride, Rebecca Waterhouse.

HARRIET PETTIT HOUSE

Their son, John, is said to have been the first child born in the new settlement. He became a cabinet maker. Following his father’s example, he sought a wife in Chester and married Sarah Parmelee Mitchell, who was his “second cousin, once removed.” Of this ancestry and marriage was born the future woman missionary. The family comprised Mary Jane (dying in infancy), Eliza Ann, Mary Jane, Harriet Maria, John Mitchell, William Frederic and Sarah Frances, all of whom were born at Waterford except the last. The mother was a member of the Waterford Presbyterian Church, and the two older daughters united at an early age. In 1832 the family moved to Sandy Hill, New York, where resided an uncle, General Micajah Pettit. While living there Harriet made a profession of her faith at the age of seventeen. During residence in that village she became acquainted with Stephen Mattoon and the young woman who later became his wife, with both of whom she wasdestined to be associated in Siam. The first appearance of her name in the journal of Dr. House is a casual entry that Mrs. Mattoon had received (1851) a letter from her friend Harriet Pettit. After nine years the family returned to Waterford in 1841.

Harriet’s elementary education was the best afforded by the private school system of the period. In 1840 she entered the Emma Willard Female Seminary at Troy, New York. There she studied for a year, and then entered upon what proved to be her life work of female education. Her first year of teaching was in a young ladies’ school in New York City. For two years she served as governess for a family in Charleston, South Carolina. It was while there that she wrote to her youngest sister a most remarkable letter of religious importunity. In the winter of 1843 a great revival had aroused the little church at Waterford under the pastor, Rev. Reuben Smith, in which sixty-nine were converted. Among these were her father and two brothers, all of whom united with the church. Having received news of this awakening, Harriet sent to her sister, the only member of the family not yet in the Church, a letter carefully printed so as to be legible to the girl of ten years. It was a letter with a purpose. It was an affectionate entreaty for the sister to become a Christian. Concisely but clearly she explained what it meant to be a Christian, and then gently and with fervour urged a prompt decision for Christ. That letter was not void of its purpose, and all these eighty years since it has been treasured by the recipient as a memento of a loving, consecrated sister.

The Pettit family did not remain long in Waterfordafter their return. In 1844 they moved to Newark, New Jersey, and there became identified with the Second Presbyterian Church, of which at the time the pastor was a relative, the Rev. Ebenezer Cheever, who had formerly been their pastor also at Waterford. Thereupon, Harriet came to Newark and set up a small school for girls in her home. In 1848 she was called to be assistant in the female seminary at Steubenville, Ohio. In the fall of 1851 she returned to Newark and opened, under her own management, a “Select School for Young Ladies,” which she continued up to the time of her marriage. During these later years she was active in the work of the Second Church, serving as joint superintendent of the Sunday school. On Oct. 24, 1855, her father died, leaving Harriet alone with their mother and her youngest sister.

It was at this juncture of the family affairs, two days after the father’s death, that Harriet received an unexpected call from her friend of former years, Dr. S. R. House, then home on a furlough from Siam. Writing later to a friend she comments:

“It is but two years this morning since my good husband called at 373 Broad Street, Newark, to see a lady on very particular business. Only two years,—and fifteen months of that time I have been in the city of Bangkok. Does not this speak well for Samuel’s despatch of business sometimes? (Then quoting a bit of doggerel which he had once written:)‘I haven’t the slightest notionOf launching on the stormy oceanWhere family cares and troubles riseHeaping their billows to the skiesA wife’s complaint, the young one’s criesWont suit me.’“How entirely we sometimes change our minds! On the morning of the 26th, the ‘batch’ who once thus sung had not the slightest, but the strongest notion—and launching forth soon followed.”

‘I haven’t the slightest notionOf launching on the stormy oceanWhere family cares and troubles riseHeaping their billows to the skiesA wife’s complaint, the young one’s criesWont suit me.’

‘I haven’t the slightest notion

Of launching on the stormy ocean

Where family cares and troubles rise

Heaping their billows to the skies

A wife’s complaint, the young one’s cries

Wont suit me.’

“How entirely we sometimes change our minds! On the morning of the 26th, the ‘batch’ who once thus sung had not the slightest, but the strongest notion—and launching forth soon followed.”

Having changed his mind the suitor allowed little time to slip by till he had won the object of his heart’s desire. A month and a day after the engagement, on Nov. 27, 1855, the marriage occurred.

The bridal couple sailed for Siam in the spring of 1856, arriving at Bangkok in July. On the part of the natives connected with the mission the bride was received with a quiet curiosity, for these people were slow to receive newcomers into their affections. But King Mongkut, having first given a private audience to Dr. House, requested particularly that the bride might come to the palace to receive his congratulations. Mrs. House describes the call:

“A few weeks afterwards a note came from him inviting the ladies who, as he expressed it, ‘had not yet been to pay their personal interview to H. M.,’ and saying he would send a boat for us. About 2 p. m., the boat came with one of the ladies of the king’s household and a train of servants; and Mrs. Morse and I went.... Passing through a gate in the wall of the palace we were conducted through paved streets on each side of which are the brick dwellings of the various inmates. As we passed along we attracted the attention of the residents who crowded about the doors, curious to see the foreign ladies.“At length we arrived at a large building on the portico of which were chairs, and here we were invitedto sit to await summons into the royal presence.... After an hour or more a message came from H. M. announcing his readiness to receive us. We entered a door guarded by several female soldiers; and here stood the king to meet us; dressed in a mouse colored, figured silk sacque, over a white garment—a large diamond on his breast, a number of very brilliant rings and a gold watch, and sandals on feet. He extended his right hand very graciously to us and led the way to a spacious hall, hung round with mirrors, where we were seated.“He sent for his favorite wife whom he introduced as his queen consort, and afterwards sent for her two children; the eldest a boy of about four years, was loaded with chains of gold; the youngest a daughter. Both very handsome. His Majesty was exceedingly affable, speaking English so that with strict attention we could understand. He conversed on various subjects intelligently. Refreshments were served, during which H. M. left us. When he returned he presented to us each, as a memento of our visit, a very heavy gold ring of Siamese manufacture, set with five sapphires. After being shown through some of the apartments, at sundown we took our leave.”

“At length we arrived at a large building on the portico of which were chairs, and here we were invitedto sit to await summons into the royal presence.... After an hour or more a message came from H. M. announcing his readiness to receive us. We entered a door guarded by several female soldiers; and here stood the king to meet us; dressed in a mouse colored, figured silk sacque, over a white garment—a large diamond on his breast, a number of very brilliant rings and a gold watch, and sandals on feet. He extended his right hand very graciously to us and led the way to a spacious hall, hung round with mirrors, where we were seated.

“He sent for his favorite wife whom he introduced as his queen consort, and afterwards sent for her two children; the eldest a boy of about four years, was loaded with chains of gold; the youngest a daughter. Both very handsome. His Majesty was exceedingly affable, speaking English so that with strict attention we could understand. He conversed on various subjects intelligently. Refreshments were served, during which H. M. left us. When he returned he presented to us each, as a memento of our visit, a very heavy gold ring of Siamese manufacture, set with five sapphires. After being shown through some of the apartments, at sundown we took our leave.”

A belated sequence of this royal welcome was an invitation to Mrs. House and Mrs. Jonathan Wilson (newly arrived) to dine with the queen and some of her ladies in the palace the following year.

We catch glimpses of the indefatigable industry of this woman slightly from her few letters but chiefly from those of Dr. House. Within a month after landing, before the house was fairly settled, she began where the first opportunity presented:

“My good wife has already begun her true missionary work, for she has a Bible class of nine of our young folks, whom she instructs Sabbath mornings through the English tongue which they have partially acquired.”

Promptly she took up the important task of learning the language:

“I love the Siamese language very much indeed. The first month I was here I took no lesson and I have lost two months since by sickness and absence, but I have read and nearly translated the gospel of Matthew; and I begin to make myself understood.”

During the dry season for the first several years Mrs. House made tours with her husband. One of these was to Prabat, the scene of the “footstep of Buddha,” where the doctor had experienced rough treatment on his previous visit; on this occasion, however, no attention was paid to the presence of foreigners. Mrs. House took pains to write vivid accounts of many of these tours for the home Sunday school; these and parts of her letters found their way into the missionary magazines of the day and afterwards were incorporated as a part of the volume,Siam and Laos.

In the summer of the second year we find her teaching an hour-and-a-half daily in the mission school and giving two hours daily to the study of the language beside the domestic cares. She had already taken under her maternal oversight the native girl Delia, and also accepted charge of Nancy, whom Mrs. Mattoon had raised; and while in some ways these wards were an assistance, yet their care and direction was a great responsibility. Comments upon her zealappear frequently in the doctor’s letters, and ten years after her arrival he continues to mention her diligence:

“Harriette is as industriously engaged as ever. She will teach three full hours a day, besides what she does for her girls at home, reading and translating with the Siamese teacher. Nor can she be persuaded to spare herself. Has just started under superintendance of Delia and Ooey, alternately, an infant sewing and singing class.”

Thus by assistance of the girls whom she had already taught she undertook to extend her reach, training these girls in teaching under her own direction. After she had fairly mastered the language she sought further to enlarge her influence by preparing tracts and translating pamphlets. She is credited with these productions:

Questions in Gospel History, 1864;Stand by the Truth, 1869 (these two in conjunction with Dr. House);Catechism in Bible Truth, 1870; several juvenile story books.

Concerning theCatechism, Dr. House wrote to Mrs. House while she was in America (1871): “I take great satisfaction in the circulation of that little tractBible Truthyou toiled on so faithfully, and I like it better each day. Our whole school recite their ‘verse a day’ from that now.”

While admiring her industry. Dr. House expressed foreboding very early, writing six months after her arrival: “H. is really very well now, but is far tooindustrious. I am curious to know the effect a Siamese sun will have on such habits of diligence as she has brought from the United States.”

That the tropical rays were not to be ignored, even by consecrated diligence, early became manifested by a strange “burning sensation in the top of the head,” from which Mrs. House began to suffer within a year and which continued, sometimes with alarming discomfort, throughout her residence in Siam. As the pain increased rather than abated after seven years in the tropics, her physician recommended a sojourn in her native climate in hopes of gaining permanent relief. Accordingly Dr. and Mrs. House left Bangkok in February, 1864, and spent two full years in America. The change brought relief which at the time it was hoped would be permanent.

It is not possible to ascribe to Mrs. House the beginnings of education of women in Siam. Even apart from the efforts of the women of the other missions to teach the Chinese women, Mrs. Mattoon had at the outset of her career taken native girls into her home with a view to educating them. Later she succeeded in gathering a class of little girls in the Peguan village across the river from the capital. When Mrs. House came, in 1856, Mrs. Mattoon was conducting a class of six or seven married women whom she taught to read while at the same time giving religious instruction. Shortly after the coming of Mrs. House, Mrs. Mattoon seems to have withdrawn from such work in her favour, as her own time was then largely occupied with her domestic duties.

Modern female education in Siam may be said to have begun when the newly crowned King Mongkut, in August, 1851, requested the ladies of the several missions to come to the palace in turns for the purpose of instructing some of the royal ladies. This was five years before Mrs. House reached Siam. The intention of the king, as he expressed it, was to qualify the ladies of the palace to converse with him in English. The effect of this royal patronage of female education was not only to break the bondage of custom which held women in perpetual ignorance but to quicken popular interest in the mission school.

Though Mrs. House promptly enlisted in assisting her husband in the school for boys, her greatest sympathy was with the girls of Siam. From the first she sought to reach out toward them, making her first point of contact by a class in English Bible. As she came to perceive the age-long inheritance of ignorance that impoverished the successive generations of Siamese women she was kindled with a desire to share with them the heritage of Christian women. This lack of education she pictures:

“When we first went to Siam not one woman or little girl in ten could read, although all the boys are taught by the priests in the temples to read and write. One day a very bright interesting little girl, twelve years old perhaps, came to our boat to see the strangers. When asked if she could read, she did not answer yes or no, but with surprise exclaimed, ‘Why, I am a girl’—as if we ought to have known better than to ask a girl such a question.”

The chief obstacle to education was the notion thateducation had no value for them. Woman’s place was to serve and please man. So long as she could cook rice, take care of the children and do necessary work without knowing books, why learn? Perhaps Mrs. House did not have a vision of making education an established factor in the customs of Siam; that possibility was too vast and too remote to conceive under the circumstances. But she did have a clear vision that education was indispensable to the amelioration of womankind.

Her first step was taken in 1858, concerning which the doctor wrote: “Daily now Harriette has four female pupils about her, and the first day they were present, she came to me looking so happy, saying: ‘O, I have been in my element today—teaching girls again.’” This step was of importance chiefly as the beginning of her definite work in female education. Otherwise it was rather commonplace. These girls were just the girls whom the missionaries had taken into their homes primarily to influence for Christ. All the missionary families have done this and are doing so today. Mrs. House gathered them into a class in order that they might have more regular school training, and as other families came and other girls were taken into the homes the number in her class increased. This class was partly industrial, for besides instruction in reading the Bible and other elementary subjects, the girls were taught to sew. With the aid of an American sewing-machine their skill was utilised to make garments for the boys of the boarding school; showing their work could be of value. About this time Mrs. House also succeeded in winning the confidence of a group of older women whomshe instructed in an informal manner in domestic economy.

Along with indifference there was a more concrete obstacle to progress in education of girls—the economic factor. Time spent in class was time lost from labour in the house or in the field; and this was a serious matter. While Mrs. House had demonstrated the economic value of domestic training for girls by the saving in expense for the boys’ school through their sewing, it remained for Mrs. S. G. McFarland, at Petchaburi, in 1865, to apply this fact in such a manner as to draw women into her classes. She offered prospective pupils employment at a wage equal to that they could earn elsewhere. So long as they brought in earnings their fathers, or husbands in some cases, were not particular how they worked; and if foreigners were foolish enough to pay them to learn, the returns were a little more certain than in other markets. One of the conditions of the school was that each pupil would devote a part of the time to learning to read. The skill of hands which they acquired by training enabled them to earn their wage and still leave a good margin of time for this instruction. The result was a demonstration that trained hands could do more and better work, and that trained minds made those hands more thrifty. Here was the answer to the economic objection to female education.

When Mrs. House returned from America, in 1866, she took up her work with women again. Reporting home, the doctor wrote: “Harriette is greatly engaged in her labours of teaching etc., going out to the school room and calling to her at home the women about us of whom she has a class now morning and afternoon,learning to read.” This is only a glimpse, but it shows that she returns with her purpose steady in mind. While Dr. House was on his ill-fated trip to Chiengmai Mrs. House assumed full charge of the boys’ school and boarding department, and at the same time continued her classes for women. Perhaps it should be explained that while the term women is most commonly used in the doctor’s references to her work, the word really refers to the young married women for the most part, girls whom we would class as of the high school ages or just above.

At length Mrs. House introduced the plan which Mrs. McFarland had tested at Petchaburi, paying women for their work which in turn was disposed of to advantage, but on condition that part of their time should be devoted to general instruction in the rudiments of learning, always including the Bible. With this advance her work for women passed from the stage of voluntary classes to a recognised established school. Writing in 1868, Dr. House reported home:

“Harriette is greatly engaged in her new industrial school for women. A busy scene on our back verandah every morning,—eight sewers.... Harriette’s class of women in her industrial school for women is a success and promises great good, though it keeps her busy in season and out of season.”

Mrs. House was able to use in this work some of the older girls who had been under her motherly care for some years. When, in 1871, she spent a year in America, her industrial school was continued under the direction of Maa Kate and Maa Esther, who took full charge.

The three years’ absence from Siam proved to have only a temporary benefit for Mrs. House’s health. The burning sensation in her head soon set in anew. She worked under constant pain; at times her head was swathed in wet cloths to mitigate the pain so that she could discharge her duties. Work and suffering together were exhausting, and after another three years period she was forced to seek a respite. To this end, in 1869, she gladly accepted the invitation of the Burrows, of Canton, that family of good friends to missionaries, who offered a free passage in one of their ships and kind hospitality in their home.

This voyage to China proved to be perilous and alarming reports of a foundered ship reached Dr. House at Bangkok. Fortunately the ship’s encounter was not fatal.

“When twenty-eight days out the ship sprang a leak, made eleven inches of water an hour, eight feet a day. Men kept constantly at pumps; had to lighten the ship by throwing over some one thousand sacks of rice, one-tenth the cargo, and undergird the ship with a large sail—‘thrumming’ they call it. Spoke a ship which promised to keep company and to come and help if at night a certain lantern signal was hoisted. Lost sight of her however. Were indeed in great peril. But a gracious Providence brought them in safety.”

A visit of three months away from the tropics gave renewed vigour and again Mrs. House returned to Bangkok with buoyant hopes of a measure of comfort for her work. But as soon as the dry season had passed the pain renewed its malign attack. At thisperspective of time the wonder is that she persisted in hope of being able even to remain, much less labour in the tropics. Her persistence is a silent testimony to her earnest desire to do something for the Siamese women. After another twelve-month she was again compelled to seek relief. Desiring to see once more her mother, then eighty years of age, she sailed alone for America, arriving in the summer of 1871.

Return to the temperate climate promptly brought relief and restored her health. Her demonstrated success in the industrial school had enlarged her hopes and clarified her vision of the possibilities of female education; while the rapid modernisation of Siam under the young King Chulalongkorn quickened her sense of necessity to place that education upon a broader and more permanent foundation. Both success and the opportunity impelled her to lay the burden of responsibility upon the women of the Presbyterian Church in America. This year in America we find her accepting invitations to speak in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Albany, Troy and other places, telling her story and pleading for the womanhood of Siam.

Just here it is both interesting and amusing to look back to the attitude of mind towards women speaking in the Church. The doctor writes to his brother counseling concerning his wife’s deportment in this matter:

“Keep her if possible out of the pulpit—where I understand the zeal of some returned missionary ladiescarries them in these days of women’s movement in mission work.”

This would almost be interpreted as a bit of jocular admonition to a brother’s responsibility, were it not that we find these cautions direct to the wife:

“Don’t step out of your sphere into the pulpit. If you unsex yourself, I am not sure you will be welcome back as warmly.... O don’t let anything tempt you to go beyond your proper sphere as a woman; you cannot countupon a blessingthere and you will certainly grieve many that you love.”

Nor is the doctor quite as sanguine as his wife over this project for a general advance in work for women even in Siam where he knows the situation intimately:

“I sympathise with you heartily in your wish to accomplish much for Siam before our stay here ... is over. And it may be that the privilege will be given you of working more for the women of the land. But there are great difficulties in the way of this and there will be great trials and disappointments awaiting you. I fear your distance from Siam lends ‘enchantment to the view,’ and makes you forget what the people are—heathen in heart and custom of life. You ought to know that not a few here are opposed to the principle of female industrial schools.... It is a very serious question you propose with reference to bringing a young lady out with you to reside in your family.”

Mrs. House’s plea for the women of Siam found a response very near home. It so happened that in the spring of 1872 Secretaries Irving and Ellinwood, ofthe Foreign Board, addressed a meeting of the Synod of Albany, held at Troy, New York. The Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany met at the same place, and united with the Synod to hear the addresses. The result was the organisation of a branch of the Women’s Board to cover the Troy Presbytery, whence the name “Troy Branch.” The organising group not only undertook to establish auxiliaries in their respective churches but resolved as a Branch to assume as their first and special object a boarding school for girls in Bangkok; and to inaugurate this project they commissioned Mrs. House, who was known personally to many of the women of the new organisation. To begin the work the Branch agreed to provide three thousand dollars; and for the next four years they raised some one thousand four hundred and forty dollars. So it happened that Mrs. House became the official head of the projected boarding school for girls.

The enterprise which was now committed to her was much larger in scope than the work she already had under way; and even with small beginnings there was need of an assistant to share the burden, lighten the responsibility and aid in council. While Mrs. House was in correspondence with several young women whose interests had been turned towards Siam by her addresses a young woman of her own church at Waterford, Arabella Anderson, offered herself.

Arabella Anderson was the daughter of James McL. and Arabella Moreland Anderson, who emigrated from Belfast about 1847. They settled atWaterford, New York, and promptly identified themselves with the Presbyterian Church. They brought an infant son with them; another son and three daughters were born to them in their new home. Arabella was the eldest daughter, having been born Nov. 26, 1848. After elementary instruction in the local school she spent a year in a nearby academy. At the age of twelve she united with the Church. Her desire to become a foreign missionary was largely the fruit of home influence. Both parents were devoted to the cause of missions. Her father never forgot to intercede for the work at family prayers. Her mother had been quickened in zeal for the work in youth by hearing a missionary to Russia; and it was her hope that her first born son might become a missionary, though circumstances prevented this.

In the summer of 1872 Mrs. S. R. House was at her old home in Waterford planning to return to Siam for the new enterprise which had been entrusted to her by the “Troy Branch.” The pastor of the local church, Rev. R. P. H. Vail, preached a missionary sermon making a strong appeal for a volunteer to accompany Mrs. House as a missionary-teacher. This came to the heart of Miss Anderson as the Master’s call for enlistment in the work she had long contemplated. After counsel with her mother she offered her services to Mrs. House and was accepted. Two months later, in September, the two sailed for Siam, reaching Bangkok late in the autumn. It was two years before the new boarding school for girls could be housed. In the meantime Miss Anderson took charge of the younger children in the day school of the mission.

After the girls’ school was under way,by a happy inspirationMiss Anderson hit upon an idea that brought the new school to the attention of the young King Chulalongkorn. The sewing class was sewing patches to make a quilt cover. It occurred to her that a specimen of their product brought to the attention of the king might demonstrate to him the practical character of their school. Accordingly she had the girls make a quilt from pieces of silk she had brought from China, with the intention of presenting this to the king on his birthday. Arrangements having been made through the Foreign Office, Dr. and Mrs. House, Miss Anderson and Miss Grimstead (another assistant) were received by the king. After an address of congratulations they presented the silk quilt to him. His Majesty expressed his pleasure at the compliment, and his gratification at having such a specimen of the work being done by the girls of the school. Droll as this incident may seem now—the formal reception at royal court and the presentation, to such an august personage, of a patch-work quilt made by girls of a sewing class—yet the demonstration made a favourable impression upon the progressive ruler and won his sympathetic interest in the educational work for girls newly undertaken by the mission.

After learning the language Miss Anderson translated several of Dr. Richard Newton’s addresses for the young, under the titleBible Blessings. Mrs. House and Miss Anderson went to Canton in 1875 for recuperation. There Miss Anderson met Rev. Henry V. Noyes, a missionary under the Presbyterian Board. The acquaintance led to an engagement, andthe two were married at Bangkok, Jan. 29, 1876. Two years were spent in America in work for the Chinese on the Pacific Coast, and then the couple returned to China, where Mrs. Noyes co-operated with her husband, especially conducting Bible schools for women.

After the death of her husband, in 1914, she continued to labour in China in a non-official capacity until 1922, when she returned to America, having served in the foreign mission work fifty years. One son, Richard V. Noyes, died as he was about to enter upon a missionary career; the other son, Rev. Wm. D. Noyes, was for some years a missionary in China under the Presbyterian Board. A sister of Mrs. Noyes, Sarah Jean (1854-1902), graduated in 1875 from the Women’s Medical College of New York and in 1877 sailed for China as a medical missionary under the Presbyterian Board. Ill health compelled her to resign two years later. Afterwards she married Mr. Richard C. Brown and resided in England, where she rendered valuable services for the cause of temperance.

The first step necessary to establish the new boarding school was to procure a suitable building. Space at the mission compound did not permit of a new building with room for future expansion. It so happened that the mission had already purchased a piece of land with the intention of opening a second station. A residence had been begun but remained unfinished for lack of funds. It was decided to turn this property over to the school and complete thebuilding with funds provided by the Troy Branch. The locality was known as Wang Lang, a name which attached itself to the school for several years. Concerning this site Dr. House wrote:

“The location of the school is a fine one. It is central, healthy and breezy; on the west bank of the noble river Meinam, which rolls through the great city; opposite to, but a quarter of a mile above, the Royal Palace, where its buildings such as they are cannot but testify to prince, noble and peasant as they pass by in their boats of state or barges what Western Christian nations think of female education. They also testify to the generosity and friendship of the American church people.”

As soon as the building could be made ready Dr. and Mrs. House and Miss Anderson moved to the new location. On May 13, 1874, this first boarding school for girls in Siam was opened with six boarders and one day pupil. The building, originally intended only for a residence, was none too commodious. The basement contained kitchen, dining room and servants’ quarters; the first floor had a suite of three rooms for Dr. and Mrs. House and one common living room; on the second floor was one small sleeping room for Miss Anderson and two large rooms which served as school rooms by day and as dormitories for the girls by night. Within a year a second helper was added in the person of Miss Susie D. Grimstead. By the second year twenty girls had enrolled, living in these two rooms, rather small quarters by American standards but ample according to native custom.

In one regard Mrs. House was disappointed in herexpectation. It had been her confident hope to attract to this school daughters of some of the nobles and princes. A few of this class came at first but soon the school was left to the girls of the common class. The value of an education was not yet as highly valued among the higher classes as among the lowly; for the women of the upper grades not only had no need to read but no need to work; while on the other hand the practical nature of the training given in the school did not meet the requirements of their social position. In later years, however, there was a decided change, and with the growing popularity of education nearly half of the pupils in the school were from the noble families.

It was the lot of Mrs. House to do little more than to inaugurate the new school, for her health rendered a long period of service impossible. But in even initiating the movement she did far more than she realised at the time, for she was investing in the enterprise an accumulation of experience and a wealth of influence among the women of Bangkok such as no one else possessed, and which gave the institution a capital from which it began to draw immediate returns. Such a school could not have been organised by a new leader, however skilled in educational matters, without long years of cultivation of personal relations with the mothers and girls. One can see now that Mrs. House’s return to Siam for another trial of health had a higher wisdom than even she could perceive; for while it seemed a daring of Providence, it was in fact the wisdom of the great Teacherfor her to expend the final momentum of her personal prestige and thereby buy up a decade of time or more at the expenditure of her last four years of effort.

The return to Siam in 1872 found the climate less kindly to her. Then came a new development, an attack of asthma which lasted for nearly eight months, so debilitating her as to render it necessary for her to relinquish the cherished work into other hands. In March, 1876, after twenty years of faithful, zealous and labourious work for the Kingdom of God among the women of Siam, she bade farewell to her friends there and returned to America with her husband.

“Need I tell you that I left Siam with a sad, sad heart? At the monthly concert this month my feelings overcame me so that I felt as if I could not attend another till I became more reconciled to the thought that I can never again labour among the heathen. I think many of the Siamese truly regretted our leaving. The dear school girls followed us weeping to the landing, and we could hear their sobs as long as we could see them waving goodbye.“Had I not felt it a case of life and death, I could not have torn myself away. It was plain duty but it seemed to me a dark providence that I should so soon be obliged to leave this dear school, the result of so much labour and prayer and of so many trials.”

“Had I not felt it a case of life and death, I could not have torn myself away. It was plain duty but it seemed to me a dark providence that I should so soon be obliged to leave this dear school, the result of so much labour and prayer and of so many trials.”

Mrs. House was so modest in the estimate of her own work for women that she failed to appraise fully what she had done. No doubt the meagerness of results up to the time of her resignation and thesmallness of the achievement in comparison with her hopes caused the whole to appear insignificant. None of her letters give expression to the feeling of accomplishment but dwell largely upon the great need and the unappropriated opportunity. However, a careful review of the development of education for women in Siam gives to Mrs. House a very high place among all the consecrated women who contributed the labours of hand and head and heart to that object. Without detracting one iota from the praise that belongs to others, but rather reflecting light upon their measure of honour, it may be said that to Mrs. House belongs the credit for certain important steps which marked the development and contributed to the permanent establishment of female education in Siam.

In the early attempts at educating girls in the homes of the missionaries the aim in view was the conversion of the girls, to which the education in reading was incidental. Without minimising the value of education as an agency for religion Mrs. House viewed education as an object greatly to be desired in itself with manifold advantages issuing from it, but especially having an influence upon the whole social status of womankind. A second factor utilised by her for the development of her object was domestic and manual training as a part of the broad policy of education. Previously the few girls in the homes of the missionaries had been trained in ways of work to make them more efficient servants for the earning of their keep, but there was no attempt to give instruction of this character to others. Mrs. House included domestic training in the scope of education. Moreover,she showed herself ready to appropriate valuable ideas wherever she found them, and when she saw that Mrs. McFarland later utilised this economic factor to draw girls into her school at Petchaburi, she readily adopted the same method.

But if the efforts of several missionary women to teach small groups of girls may be likened to the foundations of female education in Siam, then the boarding school which Mrs. House established must be likened to the corner-stone of the structure which has since grown into a beautiful and impressive temple of learning. Hitherto classes had been the voluntary undertaking of individuals in their eagerness to help their sisters out of darkness; but in each case the undertaking was not a permanent project but subject to termination with the removal of the particular teacher. Mrs. House’s achievement at Wang Lang was the establishment of an institution with a support and a directorate that insured permanency.

In the voluntary classes the girls were in contact with the teachers for a few hours at the most and then returned to native environment to which they were subject for the greater part of the time. It was like taking one step forward and then stepping back. The influence of the home and of the city largely obstructed the good impulses received by the girls while with their teachers. The advance feature of the Wang Lang school was that the girls were to remain under constant Christian influence, in frequent contact with the teachers and subject to the daily discipline of an ideal Christian home. While the girls were devoting their full mental energy to study, the Christian religion had the fairest chance to bear itsfruit in ennobled character, free from the blighting influence of pagan customs and morals.

As indicative of what this school meant for the future educational program in Siam it is worthy of note that twenty-five years after the establishment of the Wang Lang school, the entire female teaching force in the government public schools in Bangkok were graduates of this school, thirteen in number, all but one of whom were professing Christians. It is no wonder, then, that the Minister of Education in Siam, at a commencement of the school, said:

“The Siamese formerly had a proverb which was in every man’s mouth: ‘Woman is a buffalo; only man is human.’ Through the influence of your school and the teaching of the American Missionary women, we have thrown that old proverb away, and our own government is founding schools for the education of girls.”

As a mark of honour to the founder this school was named “The Harriet House School for Girls,” a name which it retained until successful growth made it necessary to divide the school and seek new quarters; the higher grades of which are now known as “Wattana Wittaya Academy,” while the older name still clings to the old school in its old location.

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